Gorilla Crouch

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.

Ryan Miller
Age: 26

College
1999-00 (19) - Michigan State
2000-01 (20) - Michigan State
2001-02 (21) - Michigan State
AHL
2002-03 (22) - Rochester/Buffalo
2003-04 (23) - Rochester/Buffalo
2004-05 (24) - Rochester
NHL
2005-06 (25) - Buffalo

There are a couple things to mention here. First off is that Miller spent the entire 2004-05 season in Rochester due to the lockout. The second is that he was a in a similar position to Valtteri Filppula as far as starting off the 2005-06 in the AHL before being called up and becoming a fixture in net for the Sabres. Now let’s look at Jimmy Howard’s career to date.

Jimmy Howard
Age: 23

College
2002-03 (19) - Maine
2003-04 (20) - Maine
2004-05 (21) - Maine
AHL
2005-06 (22) - Grand Rapids/Detroit
2006-07 (23) - Grand Rapids/Detroit

So at this point Howard is where Miller was just prior to the lockout. The thing I do not know is how likely Miller was to play in Buffalo if the 2004-05 season wasn’t wiped out due to the lockout. Perhaps spending another year in Grand Rapids like Miller did in Rochester would be in Howard’s best interest. But what if Detroit doesn’t want to get into the Jean Sebastien Giguere sweepstakes and isn’t overly confident in any of the other options available on the free agent market?

Pete mentioned in the comments section that Detroit might want to look at Vesa Toskala or either Niklas Backstrom or Manny Fernandez from the Wild. It’s a very good point and I will look at some of those options in my next article in this series.

But for the time being let’s say that the Red Wings decide to go with a tandem of Jimmy Howard and Chris Osgood. Here is how it would impact the salary cap as far as goaltending goes:

Goaltenders
Chris Osgood and Jimmy Howard - $1.6 million

Obviously the salary impact is going to be miniscule (well, miniscule for Mike Illitch). That would allow Detroit to deal with their biggest need - if they truly think Howard is ready for prime time - defense. As I mentioned in the article yesterday, right now Detroit has two legitimate top 4 defenseman. One is amongst the best in the game but the other is highly injury prone. That’s not a knock against Niklas Kronwall, but it’s something the organization has to always be cognizant of as they plan. That has to be the case until he can make it through a full season without being injured.

But if the team decides that Howard is ready to make the club they can try and help him out as much as possible by making a small splash on the free agent market. Well, when it comes to signing free agent defensemen a small splash probably isn’t going to do much. Let’s take a look at the defensemen and the forwards who are either coming back or are likely to do so and we can see where Detroit is in relation to the salary cap.

Defense
Nicklas Lidstrom and Andreas Lilja - $8.6 million
Nik Kronwall and Brett Lebda - $3.7 million
Kyle Quincey and Chris Chelios - $1.4 million

TOTAL: $13.7 million

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 if you add this all together what you end up with is a total of $33.6 million. That would put Detroit about $13 million beneath the salary cap and would allow them to go after two solid defensemen. A solid offensive defensemen, whether it be Mathieu Schneider or Darryl Sydor or somone of their ilk - good offensive production combined with sound defensive play - could possibly be had for $4 million or less. Next pick up a rugged defensive defensemen to pair with Lidstrom - either Danny Markov or someone with similar skating ability and physical play - and hopefully that will only set the team back about $3 million.

Another option if you wanted to be more aggressive and if you think Kyle Quincey and Jakub Kindl could make the team and have a big impact is to go after one high profile free agent defenseman - someone like Brad Stuart. Stuart is a good skater, makes a good first pass, can play physical as evidenced by his play in the series against Detroit, and would probably be pretty effective on Detroit’s power play. However if he commands more than $5 million per season, which is possible, he’d probably complicate Detroit’s efforts to sign Nick Lidstrom and Henrik Zetterberg over the next couple seasons.

The big question mark with pursuing this youth movement in net is that Jimmy Howard could struggle. Ryan Miller, Ray Emery and Cam Ward have all had playoff success at a young age but they are the exception, not the rule. And if Howard does struggle Detroit doesn’t have another netminder in the minors whom they could call up to take his place. At that point it would be on Chris Osgood to carry the team. Trying to obtain a goaltender via trade has proven to be very expensive so that might not be an option either.

But if Howard proves to be up to the challenge it would allow Detroit to restock the blueline and - more importantly - would solve the Red Wings’ need at goaltender for the foreseeable future. If the Red Wings braintrust doesn’t think Howard is ready for a callup the next option might be to bring in a short-term goaltender to bridge the gap until Howard is ready. I’ll look at that option next.

Red Wings

May 30th, 2007
Categories: Red Wings . Author: Dave

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