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8 takeaways: Maple Leafs make road history in Detroit | Sportsnet.ca

A 4-0 loss at home to former head coach Mike Babcock and the probably playoff-bound Maple Leafs. It doesn't get much worse than that, does it?

The Red Wings just might have hit rock bottom last night. Take a look at the Eastern Conference standings right now and Detroit is in the basement. Expand your view to the entire league and the Wings are in the bottom five. The team should be thankful the shootout exists too because their 14 ROW is third worst in the NHL. The Red Wings don't need to tank this season... they're bad enough in the games that they're actually trying to win.

So if this is rock bottom, where does this franchise go from here? Well Ken Holland answered that question on Sportsnet's Hockey Central pregame show.

"I don’t see us being a buyer. The question is, do we become a seller or do we stand pat?" Holland said. "We certainly expected to be a little bit higher in the standings."

Holland does mention in the interview with Jeff Marek (definitely click the link and give it a watch. It's worth 4 minutes of your time) that if the team is enough points out of the playoff race, they will look to sell. If they're close, they'll stand pat. It appears there is a plan in place. That's the good news. However, I'm not sure I have the faith in Holland to execute the plan to it's fullest.

It's painfully obvious that Thomas Vanek should be dealt. What can you get for him? I'd love a first round pick. Is that realistic? Probably not.

Who else should go?

I'd want Holland to think long and hard about any proposals for Mike Green. If he's healthy, Brendan Smith should be traded for whatever they can get for him (that was hard to write). If Chicago is really interested in guys like Gus Nyquist and Tomas Tatar, what's the offer? A deal can be had for at the right price. We know Holland isn't trading Henrik Zetterberg or Niklas Kronwall. Players like Dylan Larkin, Anthony Mantha and Andreas Athanasiou should be off limits. I'd say Petr Mrazek too. Everyone else? Give us your best offer.

The bottom line is that this upcoming trade deadline won't fix all of the Red Wings issues, but it could go a long way in regards to speeding up the rebuilding process.

Let's Go Red Wings.