Red Wings GM continues to value drafting, development over trades, free agency

With training camp on the horizon, Detroit Red Wings general manager Ken Holland continues to be met with questions in regards to an extremely quite offseason in terms of player movement and additions to the roster.

In a lengthy interview with the Detroit Free Press, Holland reiterated his slow and steady philosophy in regards to team building, foregoing the perhaps more popular strategy (or flashy, at least) of plucking players off the market whenever possible.

“We need to draft. We need to develop. We need to have patience,” Holland said, adding it's a style of team building that paid dividends for Detroit in the past.

I’ve been with the Red Wings as a player since 1983, since ’85 as a scout, and I would say that the work we did in the late ’80s and early ’90s really set us up for a decade, and in Nick Lidstrom’s case two decades. And then the work that we did in the late ’90s and the 2000s - and the work at the draft table, the work of developing players - set us up for the last decade.

If you’re going to be successful as an organization in the National Hockey League, in my opinion, you've got to draft well — drafting and developing.

And free agency and trading is the complementary piece to be a good organization.

Holland admitted the lack of player signings this summer was not for a lack of effort. He identifies the club's needs as “another 35-goal scorer” to complement Pavel Datsyuk and Henrik Zetterberg, and a right-handed defenseman with the offensive skills of a Brian Rafalski.

“There was a small cluster of those individuals available,” Holland said. “We made pitches to them all, but I think at the end of the day for a variety of reasons, they went elsewhere. It’s got nothing to do with the city. It’s got nothing to do with the coach, or the manager.”

Holland further acknowledges his club is no longer considered among the League's elite-level teams, but firmly believes the experience gained last season by the likes of Tomas Tatar, Gustav Nyquist, Luke Glendening and other young players will serve to compliment a healthy Datsyuk and Zetterberg, and perhaps more established players picked up along the way. 

“Our ownership has always been committed to doing to the cap. I have the green light from our ownership to spend to the cap," Holland declared. “I think it’s a great time for the league. I think it’s a great time for the Detroit Red Wings. I’m excited about the 2014-15 season."

The full interview can be read here.