Red Wings' Holland confident in young core: 'Our kids are pretty good'

The kids are all right.

Detroit Red Wings general manager Ken Holland intends to engage in trade talks, interview potential draftees, and work on signing the team's restricted free agents while he's at the NHL Scouting Combine in Buffalo this week, but that's all standard operating procedure.

The GM feels that even though his team will look at many options to improve the organization in the offseason, the real way for the Red Wings to take the next step is for the young core to continue to improve.

"Let's see what young players are ready to play full time in Detroit," Holland told Ansar Khan of MLive.com. "Part of it (improvement) has to be internal, the development of these young players. Can we make a move that makes us a little better? That's what we'll explore over the next month.

"We tried to do some things in the last two-to-three years and in many cases our kids were better than the moves we made."

Holland should be impressed with youngsters Tomas Tatar (29 G, 27 A), Gustav Nyquist (27 G, 27A), Danny DeKeyser (2 G, 29 A), Riley Sheahan (13 G, 23 A), and Petr Mrazek (16-9-2, 2.38 GAA), who all showed they're capable of playing at an elite level in the big show.

Add in the ever-improving Tomas Jurco and Teemu Pulkkinen and the future in Detroit looks bright.

"Our kids are pretty good. We need them to continue to develop and get better."

The Red Wings were eliminated in the first round of the postseason by the Eastern Conference champion Tampa Bay Lightning.