re wings will win gballent hudson uvic ca greg ballentine writes in article vela acs oakland edu ragraca vela acs oakland edu randy a graca writes gballent vancouver uvic ca greg ballentine writes stuff deleted when quinn took over vancouver several years ago not last year they regularily missed the playoffs i can t recall if they missed the playoffs the year before his hiring but they probably did quinn has improved the team from non playoff calibre to a serious contender when murray took over in detroit the were about a team that was a contender to win the norris division and possibly even a stanley cup contender the last year before bryan murray took over the wings did not make the playoffs while they had been considered a possible contender when jacques demers first arrived in his last two years they were respectively embarrassed in the first round by chicago and then failed to make the playoffs at a time a might add when there were only five teams in the norris it s true that vancouver did not make the playoffs for many a year before quinn came but in those years the smythe division was a lot i mean a lot tougher division than the norris also known as the snorris division vancouver had to play edmonton and calgary both very legitimate stanley cup contenders eight times a year while detroit got to play such powerhouses as toronto and minnesota now edmonton is hardly even a force in the league and the smythe even has the mighty san jose sharks while over this same period of time in which vancouver was improving so was everybody in the norris except st louis detroit had to improve just to keep up with the competition in their division they had to improve a lot to get better than their competition in the norris bryan murray inherited a team with very little talent for really good players they had yzerman burr and probert and that was about it and no doubt some will dispute whether burr and probert were that good the rest were either very green rookies or washed up veterans the only reason they got as far as they did in the years before murray came was due to the coaching of demers who at least at first got every last ounce of effort possible out of his team then even his coaching began to degrade so quinn has improved his team more than murray has since taking over as a gm quinn is one example of a better gm than murray there are a number of reasons why detroit wasn t in as bad a shape standings wise when murray took over as vanc was when quinn took over some of which i outlined above but murray did not have any better personnel to work with at the outset than did quinn with the exception of yzerman and one player cannot alone make a team into a stanley cup contender as i m sure everyone reading this will agree we ll be able to see better which team is really the most improved when they face each other in the conference final assuming they don t get knocked out like last year gregmeister randy
