Offseason Moves for Red Wings - What if Hasek Retires?
Yesterday I took a look at one scenario where Dominik Hasek comes back and the Red Wings make an effort to keep most of their free agents. But that approach is based entirely on Hasek coming back to play for the 2007-08 season. What happens if he decides to retire again?
If that happens the Red Wings likely have two options - and both are wrought with peril. They could either try to sign a goaltender who will be an unrestricted free agent or they could go with a tandem of Chris Osgood and Jimmy Howard. Howard is Detroit’s #1 prospect, but it is believed he would benefit from one more year playing the bulk of the games in Grand Rapids.
If Detroit decides to sign a free agent Jean Sebastien Giguere will be the best goaltender available. He has a great shot at winning his second Conn Smythe award as the MVP of the NHL playoffs. Coming off a playoff run where the Ducks are in a good position to win the Stanley Cup could put him in the exact same position that Nikolai Khabibulin was in after the Tampa Bay Lightning won the Cup following the 2003-04 season. How much did it cost to obtain Khabibulin’s services? $6.75 million per year.
I seriously doubt the Red Wings pay anything close to that for a netminder. Khabibulin hasn’t made the playoffs in Chicago and the Red Wings had much better success scoring against Giguere this year in the playoffs than they did when they met the Ducks in the playoffs following the 2002-03 season. The Ducks netminder also has two very good defensemen playing in front of him right now. That probably will not be the case if the Red Wings sign him this summer. So he’s probably not worth that $6 million price tag that will be the likely starting point in negotiations to obtain his services.
But for the sake of argument let’s say the Red Wings have to scramble to get a netminder and let’s say they decide that Giguere is their guy. I’d guess they’d have to pay something like $6.25 million to sign him. It could be more but my guess is that is in the ballpark of what he’ll pull down for his next contract. Here is how that would impact Detroit’s salary cap:
Goaltender
J-S Giguere and Chris Osgood - $7.1 million
Defense
Nicklas Lidstrom and Andreas Lilja - $8.6 million
Nik Kronwall and Brett Lebda - $3.7 million
Kyle Quincey and Derek Meech - $1 million
TOTAL: $20.5 million
Chris Chelios will be back if he decides he wants to play next season. If that happens he likely gets paired with Quincey and Meech probably ends up as the 7th defenseman. Andreas Lilja has played with Lidstrom before so that could work out as far as your top pairing goes. The big concern in this scenario is your second pairing on defense. Kronwall hasn’t played a full season due to numerous injuries and Lebda is probably better suited as a third pairing defenseman. Kyle Quincey would be able to eventually move up to the second pairing but I am not sure that is something you’d want to do as early as next season.
In this situation the Red Wings will be thin on defense and will need to find a top 4 defensemen, whether that be Danny Markov, Mathieu Schneider or another free agent. Let’s fill out the forward ranks and see how much money they’d have available to get that defenseman.
Forwards
Datsyuk, Zetterberg, Holmstrom - $9.6 million
Samuelsson, Filppula, Franzen - $2.9 million
Cleary, Draper, Maltby - $3.75 million
Kopecky, Hudler, Grigorenko - $2 million
TOTAL: $18.25 million
So by only adding J-S Giguere the Red Wings would probably be at $38.75 million. That would give them about $8 million in space beneath the cap. But they would be very thin on defense. And that would be a recipe for disaster. If Nik Kronwall suffers another significant injury then Detroit has one legit top end defensemen in Nick Lidstrom, a couple of third pairing defensemen in Lilja and Lebda [and Cheli at this point in his career if he comes back] and two very young defensemen in Quincey and Meech.
So who could Detroit sign to bolster their defense? They could use their cap space to sign one legitimate top 4 defensemen and give themselves a little room beneath the cap. They might not be able to re-sign both Danny Markov and Mathieu Schneider. The Red Wings got Markov for a discounted rate of $2.5 million last year and Schneider probably saw his value go up as offensive defensemen have been highly valued on the free agency market.
Another problem that would result from signing Giguere would be trying to re-signing Nick Lidstrom and Henrik Zetterberg. Lidstrom’s contract expires after next season and Zetterberg’s is up after the following season. Both players are likely to receive contracts in excess of $6 million per year. Having Giguere on the books for over $6 million per season on a contract that would likely run for at least 3 or 4 years could make it difficult to re-sign players who are the cornerstones of the team.
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Nice analysis of the Giguere scenario, but there are a few more options. Nicklas Backstrom will likely be a lot cheaper, and if the Wild re-sign him then Manny Fernandez will be on the market. And Vesa Toskala is already on the market. The Wings have never been shy about trading for veteran players.
[…] Yesterday I took a look at one option Detroit might pursue if Dominik Hasek decides to retire. Another option would be to give top prospect Jimmy Howard a shot to compete with Chris Osgood for the top spot in Detroit. The Red Wings have compared Howard’s development to Ryan Miller. Let’s see how Miller time came about in Buffalo. […]
[…] Moving along, Spector over at Fox Sports comments on rumors that the Red Wings might be interested in signing Jean Sebastien Giguere. I’m not sure it’s so much a rumor as a suggestion. Spector ably shoots this one down. I also looked at this scenario and agree that it doesn’t look likely to happen. […]
[…] I’ve looked at a couple different options Detroit can pursue if Dominik Hasek decides to retire. The organization has made it clear they want him back next season and there is no question he’d be the clear choice of all options available to Detroit. But what if Dom decides he doesn’t want to play next year? I’ve considered going after the best free agent goaltender available in Jean Sebastien Giguere and I’ve also looked at giving Jimmy Howard a chance to split the goaltending duties with Chris Osgood. […]