re wings will win in article ragraca vela acs oakland edu ragraca vela acs oakland edu randy a graca writes 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 them thar s fighting words hardly a force geez miss the playoffs once in years and even after making the final four times in the last five years and everyone thinks its doomsville 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 fedorov primeau kozlov lidstrom sillinger konstantinov drake kennedy racine and cheveldae were already in the pipeline due to devellano murray inherited these guys in addition to yzerman probert carson chiasson etc 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 no quinn had far less murray took over detroit at a time to take advantage of all of devellano s good drafting if devellano had not given in to demers request to make the oates trade he might still be gm gerald
