List of Red Wing UFA quickly dwindling
Bert with be following Schneider out west
At the start of the free agency period Ken Holland hoped to sign Mathieu Schneider, Dominik Hasek and Todd Bertuzzi to new deals. Brian Burke has done a much better job signing those players as Bert just joined Schneider in Anaheim. The Ducks were willing to offer Betuzzi $4 million a year over two years. Burke is quite familiar with Bertuzzi as he was the general manager in Vancouver when Bertuzzi was a Canuck.
James Mirtle suggests that Teemu Selanne is probably leaning towards retirement much like Scott Niedermayer.
Thankfully Jean Sebastien Giguere signed a contract extension this summer, otherwise the smart money would be on Burke to sign Hasek too. This follows news that Kyle Calder signed with Los Angeles and Robert Lang will drive down I-94 to become a Chicago Blackhawk. At least Detroit had no interest in signing either of those forwards. I haven’t heard of Danny Markov signing with anyone yet so I guess there is a chance the Wings could sign him. Given the fact he turned down their last contract offer the odds seem long.
I wasn’t overly concerned about Mathieu Schneider signing with Anaheim and it looked like the Wings actually improved when they were able to sign Brian Rafalski. He has as much offensive potential and is a better defensive player. But losing Bert definitely stings. It’s not that the Red Wings are going to miss anything he brought to the team last season. Heck, Robert Lang had better playoff production than Bertuzzi and Detroit fans were ready to run Langer out of town.
It was more the potential of what he could bring to the team, even though he hasn’t shown that type of capability in going on four years - when he put up 60 points and was a very solid +21 in the 2003-04 season. There’s still reason to believe he has that same capability and that’s what Red Wings fans were anticipating if the team could sign him for the upcoming season. Now it’s Duck fans who will anticipate seeing the old Bert.
It’s been reported that Detroit currently has about $8 million left beneath the cap that they can spend. That would leave the team with roughly a $1 million cushion beneath the cap. The team was hoping to sign Hasek, Bert and a depth defenseman with their remaining cap space. If they wanted to use all of their cap space on Hasek and a defenseman they might be able to make a compelling offer to Brad Stuart.
If they are still in the market for a top 6 forward on the wing it’s looking like the team might be in the running for Slava Kozlov. I expressed some reservations about signing him about a month ago, but at this point in time if you can sign a guy who averaged just about a point a game last season it’s hard to believe you can do any better than that. Particularly given Detroit’s salary constraints. Bill Guerin is a guy with some size and speed who is still on the market. Danius Zubrus is still a free agent too.
The team will be a bit on the small side, losing bigger forwards like Lang and Bertuzzi. However neither player played a huge role in Detroit’s playoff run and it can be argued pretty convincingly that it was Detroit’s injuries on the blueline that derailed their run towards the Stanley Cup. The other benefit of signing Kozlov or Guerin is that either player could probably be signed for 1 or 2 years, which would help facilitate signing Hank Zetterberg to a new contract. Zubrus might look for a longer term as he’s only 29.
If Detroit opts to use most of their cap space on a top 6 forward, it might be a good idea to give Kyle Quincey and Jakub Kindl a shot during training camp to see if they are ready to contribute in Detroit. They both have good size, with Kindl standing 6′3″ and Quincey being 6′1″. Kindl reportedly nearly made the team last season and Quincey played fairly well during the playoffs, being an even player at plus/minus and only taking 1 penalty. He wasn’t logging huge minutes obviously but he didn’t look completely out of place either.
Detroit’s top 3 defenseman have the potential to be amongst the best in the NHL. That clearly would not be the case if Detroit didn’t sign Brian Rafalski, who was much more critical to the Wings than either Ryan Smyth or Todd Bertuzzi. Cheli, who will play on the third pairing, is one of the better penalty killers.
If Kindl and Quincey can prove they belong in the rotation then the Wings could add some size to their defensive corps. Lilja, Lidstrom, Kindl and Quincey would all stand over 6 feet tall. It would also help the team stay further beneath the salary cap as both Kindl and Quincey are still playing under their entry level contracts.
The rumors suggest Dominik Hasek is still expected to sign in Detroit. There is likely only one thing that is preventing him from signing a contract: the dollar amount of the contract. My guess is he wants more money than Ken Holland is offering up, as that was clearly the case with Mathieu Schneider, Danny Markov and possibly Todd Bertuzzi. Hasek is more important than any of those players, and with at least two of them out of the picture Dom’s bargaining position might be a little stronger than it was on June 30.
Bill Guerin Brian Rafalski Danius Zubrus Danny Markov Dominik Hasek Jakub Kindl Kyle Quincey Red Wings Slava Kozlov Todd BertuzziNo Comments
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