Gorilla Crouch

Darren Helm returned to the lineup and looked like his usual self. He led all Detroit forwards in ice time and generated a breakaway scoring chance, hit everything that moved, and generally won puck battle after puck battle. If there’s one player who best represents the current state of the Red Wings it’s Helm, who doesn’t have the offensive skill that has been a hallmark of Detroit but his non-stop commitment to being a complete pain in the ass to play against is an attitude the team seems to have adopted and has kept them in every game over the past three weeks or so.

With Helm’s return the Wings actually gained a player, which was a nice change from the usual turn of events where Detroit loses a player for at least a couple weeks. Dallas won 4-3 but sticking with the few positives we also saw the emergence of the top line of Pavel Datsyuk, Todd Bertuzzi and Tomas Holmstrom. They were dominant during the second period and erased 2-1 and 3-2 deficits. Bert in particular has really picked up the scoring load and it couldn’t have happened at a more opportune time.

Jimmy Howard had his first rough game in about a month and a half. He let in 4 goals on 21 shots and while none of the goals were really soft, he probably could have turned in his typical two goals allowed performance if he played a little better. It wasn’t a terrible performance but it just wasn’t good enough. Kind of like every Radiohead album since OK Computer.

Brad May was interviewed during one of the intermissions and he reminded me a lot of Mickey Rourke’s character in the Wrestler. Sure part of it was due to their careers - professional wrestler and hockey enforcer. But it was also how bloated their faces look. For May, that’s undoubtedly due to having 10 metal plates surgically implanted in his face due to taking punches to the head. For Mickey Rourke it’s probably because he received plastic surgery from Dr. Nick Riviera:

I have plans tonight so I won’t be able to catch the game against the Hawks. I think it’s a good sign the Wings will likely face Cristobal Huet. He usually hasn’t played very well against Detroit, so the Wings could have some success against the journeyman netminder who has spent the past few seasons bouncing around from Montreal to Washington and then Chicago. He’s been passed around the NHL like a one-hitter at a Phish concert.

Red Wings

December 20th, 2009
Categories: Red Wings . Author: Dave . Comments: Comments Off

So it looks like Darren Helm will suit up this afternoon. In honor of actually gaining rather than losing players here’s a lame parody based on the song from that famous 70’s sitcom Welcome Back Kotter.

Welcome back, your wrist is what’s kept you out.
Welcome back no it ain’t the Griffins despite the doubt.
Well the names have all changed since last season,
Playoff dreams remain beyond reason.

Who’da thought Howard’d lead ya? (Who’d have thought he’d lead ya?)
In Detroit where we need ya (Here where we need ya)

Yeah we tease Helm a lot but not about a scoring line spot,
Welcome back, welcome back, welcome back, welcome back.

Red Wings

December 19th, 2009
Categories: Red Wings . Author: Dave . Comments: Comments Off

I had plans last night so I didn’t catch any of the game after the first period. Other than the win the big news is another Red Wing bites the dust. Hank just got destroyed on a perfectly clean hit by Matthias Ohlund. Apparently it’s his shoulder that kept him out of the game and no one knows just yet how long he’ll be out of commission. It doesn’t sound like he has a concussion so at least there’s that. His head should be fine since he drove himself to get an MRI, unless of course he ended up at Dr. Rahmani’s and asked for Dr. Pavel Datsyuk to give him an MRI.

It’s insane how many injuries this team has sustained and they really need to start getting guys back. The team has always had impressive depth but it’s ridiculous how much it is being tested this season. Darren Helm and Valtteri Filppula are both due back in the near future which will definitely help. The Olympics can’t get here soon enough…unfortunately they’re still two months away.

Bill over at A2Y on Jimmy Howard’s emergence:

Jimmy Howard’s December stats, courtesy of the hopeful globetrotter, Herm:

4-2. 1.67 GAA. .944 save percentage. The kid, the same one who gave Charles Manson a face wash after an OT winner? The same kid who celebrates his first ever shutout by getting a stick caught in his skate? We’re talking the same kid none of us would have trusted to guard our fridge in October much less keep pucks out of the Wings net.

Yeah I gave Howard the first star for the first oh I don’t know 40% of the season. My math skills are a little fuzzy this morning. It’s been nerve-wracking, sure, but it’s also been nice to see guys we’ve followed via Red Wings Central develop since their draft into solid NHL’ers.

The Wings were ripped during the free spending era as being the New York Yankees of the NHL. Well we’ve seen the team navigate the salary cap era as well if not better than anyone. Its player development, bringing in former stars who have been passed over, trolling the waiver wire, and small-time free agent signings that has kept Detroit afloat and in the thick of the playoff hunt this season.

On the flip side Darko Milicic, former #2 draft pick of the Detroit Pistons says “no mas”.

Red Wings

December 18th, 2009
Categories: Red Wings . Author: Dave . Comments: Comments Off

Programs, find out who the hell is playing left wing
on the second line, get yer programs.

I don’t want to say the Red Wings are running out of guys who started the season on their active roster. But I wouldn’t be surprised if copies of the programs come with a complimentary bottle of whiteout so you can update the roster over the course of the game. Or figure out who the hell that is skating on a scoring line. When I saw #20 recently I was worried the Red Wings somehow got suckered into bringing Robert Lang back. Oh, what’s that, it’s some dude who was waived by the freaking Florida Panthers Tampa Bay Lightning? Score. I’ll take him over Langer, thank you very much.

Drew Miller didn’t score last night but he’s been bumped up to a scoring line given the carnage that has taken place and his impressive play against the Nashville Predators. Kris Newbury and Patrick Eaves were free agent signings this summer and they both tallied markers last night. Eaves got his while playing short-handed and is doing a good impersonation of Dan Cleary in resurrecting his career in the winged wheel sweater. We just have to hope he doesn’t go too far with that imitation and separate his shoulder.

Newbury scored his goal on a tape to tape pass from Kris Draper - Draper intended for the pass to land on the tape of Drew Miller’s stick but it was errant and ended up on the tape of Newbury’s stick instead. Unlike Henrik Zetterberg or Pavel Datsyuk though, Newbury actually buried the puck for a goal.

All kidding aside Newbury had a nice debut for Detroit. It was one of those nights where nothing it seemed would go wrong for him: one of his penalties resulted in Eaves’ short-handed goal. It sounds like Darren Helm should be back in the lineup shortly and hopefully the same can be said for Jonathan Ericsson who injured his knee while being checked by Shane Doan.

The Wings played a pretty solid game. They carried play for much of the night, the top power play unit generated several good scoring chances, and the PK notched a shutout while generating a goal. Heck Derek Meech scored off a shot from just inside the blueline that ended up being the game winner. Mike Babcock might be so impressed that he’ll move Meech to forward and put him on a line with Pavel Datsyuk.

If not for the injury to Ericsson you might be tempted to say that Detroit’s fortunes might have finally started to improve this season. The team is currently in 8th place and Jimmy Howard has continued to play at a high level. Here is his stat line since his first start in November:

27 goals allowed, 2.08 GAA, .927 SV%, 9-4 record

Mike Babcock was quoted as saying Howard will likely start the next game on Thursday night against the Tampa Bay Lightning.

Red Wings

December 15th, 2009
Categories: Red Wings . Author: Dave . Comments: Comments Off

All things considered 9th place ain’t looking so bad
I haven’t caught enough Red Wings games to have a really good feel for the team. But here are my top three most impressive players at this point in the season. The three stars as it were.

3. Henrik Zetterberg. Z leads the team in assists, points, shots on goal, power play points, game-winning goals, and is a fixture on the PK. He’s the only point a game player on the team and he’s obviously counted on to shut down the opposition’s top talent.

2. Brad Stuart. Stuart has been getting some positive press where Mike Babcock recently said he’s been the team’s best defenseman. Two of the games I’ve caught recently (New Jersey and Anaheim) featured Stuart making goal-saving and game-saving puck re-directions. He also contributed a helper in both games and he’s logged the most minutes among d-men on the PK. He’s also played some on the point on the power play and got the primary helper on Bert’s game-winning goal last night. Hopefully he will be a regular there and supplant Jason Williams. Probably not but a guy can hope.

His plus/minus obviously blows but my uninformed guess is it’s due to two factors: Jimmy Howard and Chris Osgood just playing terribly early on and then losing his defensive partner when Niklas Kronwall went down to injury.

1. Jimmy Howard. I got a good laugh when Tyler over at the Triple Deke said that Jimmy Howard being named the star for a game ought to warrant him getting a human face:

Apparently not. Howard struggled at the start of the season and he let in a really soft goal last night. But let’s consider for a moment what the Red Wings fortunes have looked like since the end of last season:

1. Lost Marian Hossa, Jiri Hudler and Mikael Samuelsson. Sure they also lost Tomas Kopecky but let’s be honest that was about as much of a loss as that golf club Tiger Woods lost when Elin Woods decided to pimp his ride. Not much in the larger scheme of things.

2. Lost top 4 defenseman Niklas Kronwall who was starting to play at a pretty high level. How high? Despite being out of the lineup since November 22 he still leads all Red Wings defensemen in points.

3. As if those offseason losses amongst the top three lines weren’t enough, Valtteri Filppula, Johan Franzen, Jason Williams and now Dan Cleary have all missed significant time due to injuries.

Early on things looked pretty grim as Howard struggled during the first month of the season. I mean 24 goals in October sounds halfway decent, right? But that was in five games! White House security was about the only thing looser than Jimmy Howard’s netminding skills at the start of the season. Then the injury parade started in earnest and Chris Osgood once again thought it would be a good idea to take another full regular season off.

Right around Halloween it looked like making the playoffs would require a herculean feat. We couldn’t even act shocked given the fact that this summer Jimmy Devellano was telling anyone who would listen that this would be the most trying season the Red Wings faced in a really long time.

Then in the beginning of November Jimmy Howard began to show that his billing at the time of his draft as being the next great Red Wings goaltender wasn’t just hopeful thinking. Let’s take a look at his stat line since the beginning of November.

Goals against average: 2.17
Save percentage: 92.6%
Record: 8-4

Of course there are a couple caveats. First off Howard hasn’t been going up against many really good hockey clubs. Only Dallas, Atlanta and Montreal would make the playoffs if they started today. He’s also struggled with consistency throughout his professional career. While there’s no doubt he’s had a solid stretch over the past 12 games Detroit is going to need to have him play at a high level for the full season, particularly with Chris Osgood’s continued inability to turn it on and play at a high level during the regular season.

At this point with all of the adversity the team has faced since this summer I think I’m just going to appreciate Howard’s improved play. One other bright spot is the team has been impenetrable on the penalty kill over the past two dozen or so times they’ve been short-handed. Prior to that this is probably the best graphic representation of what Detroit’s PK has looked like for the past season or so:

So it’s been nice to see the penalty kill once again become a strength.

For better or for worse the Red Wings are going to have to win games grinding it out. I personally prefer those types of games to the 6-5 crapfests that feature terrible hockey play or games that feature regular trips to the penalty box and lots of specialty teams play. If the Wings can make a full commitment to defensive/responsible hockey it could really help them as they have players return from the injured reserve list.

Red Wings

December 12th, 2009
Categories: Red Wings . Author: Dave . Comments: Comments Off

The past two University of Michigan football games against the Purdue Boilermakers have provided a moment of clarity for me: the Michigan defense isn’t just incredibly bad; it’s not just one of the worst defenses in college football; it’s in the conversation amongst the worst defenses in the history of the program.

There were reports prior to the start of the season that Michigan would base it’s defense on the USC Trojans. My guess is they weren’t looking to draw comparisons to the defense USC played against Oregon but that’s pretty much how it’s turned out.

This attempt clearly hasn’t worked out very well and there are probably two reasons why that’s the case. The first is USC boasts some of the biggest stockpile of high-end talent in all of college football. While Michigan has a fair number of players who will go on to play in the NFL they don’t have anywhere near the talent the Trojans can put on the field.

The second is something that Pete Carroll admitted after USC got blown out by Oregon: his defense - stockpiled with future NFL draft picks - was simply too young and inexperienced to handle the complex gameplan that was implemented for that game.

With that being the case perhaps the Wolverines should set more modest goals when it comes to playing defense. I think they could do a lot worse than look at the Iowa Hawkeyes defense and use that as a template rather than USC’s defense.

The reasons are twofold and are the exact opposite of the comparison with USC. First Michigan boasts far more talent on defense than the Hawkeyes could ever hope to assemble. Sure the Hawks have developed some high-quality NFL players like Bob Sanders and Chad Greenway. But that doesn’t compare with the amount of NFL talent coming out of Ann Arbor every year.

The other reason is Norm Parker’s defenses tend to be very basic. He almost never switches out of his base 4-3 defense. The players are able to know their assignments inside and out and can play instinctively which allows them to react quickly and always know their assignments.

That basic defense has allowed the Hawkeyes to play solid, fundamental football and put out top ten rush defenses fairly regularly. They currently rank 14th in the country in total defense and 13th in scoring defense.

Michigan’s offense is just fine. If not for a missed field goal they would have put up 40 points yesterday. Their #1 running back has been injured all season, their #1 offensive lineman has missed the majority of the season and they are playing a true freshman quarterback. The offense could conceivably average over 40 points per game next season. But until their defense improves no lead will ever be safe. The Cincinnati game against UConn last night was a perfect example of that as the Bearcats had to replace 10 of 11 starters on defense last season. UConn quickly erased a three touchdown deficit to nearly tie the game.

Michigan has plenty of talent on defense, so there’s no excuse for the defense to be as bad as it’s been for the past two seasons. Rather than chase pipe dreams of assembling the talent USC has on its roster it’s probably much more realistic to emulate Norm Parker’s defense at Iowa.

Michigan Football

November 8th, 2009
Categories: Michigan Football . Author: Dave . Comments: No Comments

The Red Wings will possibly struggle to make the playoffs for the first time in a very long time and the wheels appear to be coming off the machine once known as Michigan football. While both situations are dire I think there are both short-term and long-term problems for both programs.

My cousin texted me before the start to the season to get my vibe on the upcoming football season. I wrote back that my conservative guess was 6-6. When the team started off 4-0 I was quite impressed and started thinking about the possibility of a 7 or 8 win season. Of course the team has lost 4 straight games to BCS competition, getting blown out in spectacular fashion in their last two games.

One problem that will be fixed fairly quickly will be Tate Forcier becoming a sophomore. If you take a look at Jimmy Clausen’s freshman stats you can see just how bad true-freshman quarterbacks really are.

56.3% completion
5.12 yards per attempt
7 TDs
6 INTs
35 sacks
103.85 rating

Here are Tate Forcier’s projected stats:

55.4% completion
7.38 yards per attempt
12 TDs
7 INTs
24 sacks
127.63 rating

As legendary basketball coach Dean Smith once commented ‘the best thing about freshmen is they become sophomores.’ If you look at Oregon’s offense - which is run by a junior JuCo transfer at QB - you have an idea of just how explosive this offense should be once it is run by someone other than a walk-on or a true freshman quarterback.

Oregon’s coach learned the zone read from Rodriguez when he was coaching at Clemson and used it to devastating effect on one of the best defenses in college football last night. The offense should continue to improve as it has this season, moving from being a bottom-feeder in the Big Ten in 2008 to the tops of the ranks within the conference this year. The future is bright for the offense going forward once Tate Forcier develops to the point where he and Denard Robinson aren’t turnover machines.

The long-term problem for Michigan football, of course, is the defense. It has been very wonky against dual-threat quarterbacks as far back as when Jim Hermann’s defense in 1998 struggled to contain Donovan McNabb and Jarious Jackson. The trend continued against Oregon and App State when Ron English was the DC and has continued unabated under Scott Shafer and now Greg Robinson. I don’t know if Michigan can really go with a fourth defensive coordinator in as many seasons but until the defense improves the team will not compete for conference and BCS titles.

For the Red Wings the short-term problem is clearly a lack of depth at forward. On top of losing Jiri Hudler and Marian Hossa this summer, Detroit is now without the services of Johan Franzen or Valtteri Filppula. That’s nearly 50% of your top three lines last season. I was a bit skeptical when the Red Wings were talking about improving their defense this season but were planning on doing so by having Todd Bertuzzi replace Hossa.

Like the Michigan football team, the Red Wings should be able to restock their depth at forward after this season when they will have a lot of space available beneath the salary cap. There are also some young forwards in the minors who could crack the depleted forward ranks.

The long-term problem, though, is that they really don’t have a high-end netminder. Both Chris Osgood and Jimmy Howard have struggled this season and both goaltenders in the minors are probably at least two seasons away from being ready for NHL action. That likely means it’s going to take more efforts like the team had last night when they held the Calgary Flames to 20 shots on goal en route to a 3-1 victory.

Michigan Football Red Wings

November 1st, 2009
Categories: Red Wings, Michigan Football . Author: Dave . Comments: No Comments

We’ve just started to get a glimpse of what Rich Rodriguez’s offense is going to look like when he gets Michigan up to full speed. And it is a thing of beauty.

Rushing yards: 380
Yards per rush: 9.7
Rushing TDs: 6

The 380 yards were the most Michigan has run for in over 6 years. Carlos Brown’s 90 yard touchdown run was the third-longest in team history. This is a team that is still fairly inexperienced along the offensive line and is rotating two true freshmen QBs.

My guess is Bo would have loved this offense.

Michigan Football Uncategorized

September 19th, 2009
Categories: Michigan Football . Author: Dave . Comments: No Comments

Happy celebrating with Helm

I joked over at Triple Deke that I hoped Jiri Hudler and his agent would be gentle when they bent Ken Holland over during contract negotiations. After losing Marian Hossa and Mikael Samuelsson this summer my fear was that Holland would sign Hudler to a contract above what he brought to the team rather than lose three players who accounted for 82 goals last year.

Jiri Hudler was obviously a gifted offensive player but his biggest shortcoming was his inability to play the tough minutes in the top 6. He has been given plenty of opportunities to lock down a spot in the top 6 but it never happened. His supporters point out his impressive offensive production given his paltry ice time but they don’t seem to realize that only happened when he was playing on the third and fourth line and was going up against weak competition. When he was bumped up to a scoring line as a top 6 forward his production would immediately dry up.

He will be missed most on the power play, where his points per 60 minutes with the man advantage trailed only Pavel Datsyuk. My guess is both Dan Cleary and Valtteri Filppula will be expected to pot 20+ goals next season to help offset the offense lost this past season. That would go a long way towards offsetting the loss of Sammy’s offensive production. My guess is they’ll be the first two guys to get shots at Hudler’s and Hossa’s power play ice time.

With that being the case I just didn’t see how the team could afford to pay him as much as Dan Cleary (2.8 million per season) or Valtteri Filppula (3 million per year). Both players are fixtures in the top 6, can play on the PK and even contribute on the power play when given the opportunity. They didn’t have the offensive production that Hudler did in Detroit but simply looking at that part of the equation is a failure to look at the whole picture.

Hudler put an end to contract negotiations when he signed a lucrative 2 year deal to play in the Kontinental Hockey League. I really don’t blame the guy and I’m somewhat relieved he put an end to contract negotiations with Detroit. Hey, the guy put in his time playing in Grand Rapids and Detroit. He slipped in the draft because of concerns about his size and his wheels and the Red Wings snapped him up in the second round.

Both sides did what they were supposed to do and the bottom line is Hudler didn’t develop to the point to where he could be an offensive force on a scoring line. If he was truly convinced he would be able to do so he could have signed the deal Ken Holland offered, stayed in Detroit and worked on further developing his game. He’d have a good shot this season with Hossa and sometime top-6 forward Mikael Samuelsson moving on. So Hudler moving on to the KHL works out for both parties in my estimation.

I’d guess that Ville Leino is the guy who will have the best shot at eating up Huds’ ES minutes. Leino can start off on the third line just as Hudler would have done and he’ll likely be given the same opportunity to claim a spot on a scoring line. If he doesn’t he’s the guy who will assume Hudler’s role if not replicate his stats. So I guess the top 6 starts off like this next season:

Zetterberg - Datsyuk - Franzen
Clearly - Filppula - Holmstrom

I’d really like to see Homer bumped down to the bottom six but with questions about whether Leino can cut it in the top 6 my guess is Mike Babcock keeps Homer up there until someone proves they belong on a scoring line. Here’s how I think the bottom six will look:

Leino - Helm - Maltby
Meech-Draper-Abdelkader

Much like the situation with Homer I’d prefer to see Maltby on the fourth line but he seems to have undergone a bit of a revitalization since Dallas Drake joined the team in 2007. My guess is Babcock trusts him on the third and the only way he gets bumped down is if Abdelkader ends up in Detroit and forces his way up the foodchain.

Here’s my guess on the salary cap situation, which as it stands right now likely means Abdelkader makes the team. The salary cap for next season is set at $56.8 million.

Forwards: 11 total

Pavel Datsyuk: $6,700,000
Henrik Zetterberg: $6,083,000
Johan Franzen: 3,954,545
Val Filppula: $3,000,000
Dan Cleary: $2,800,000
Tomas Holmstrom: $2,250,000
Kris Draper: 1,583,333
Kirk Maltby: 883,333
Ville Leino: 775,000
Justin Abdelkader: 740,000
Darren Helm: 599,444
Cap total: 27,853,655

D-men: 8 total

Nicklas Lidstrom: 7,450,000
Brian Rafalski: 6,000,000
Brad Stuart: 3,750,000
Niklas Kronwall: 3,000,000
Andreas Lilja: 1,250,000
Jonathan Ericsson: 900,000
Brett Lebda: 650,000
Derek Meech: 483,333
Cap total: 23,483,333

Goalie: 2 total

Chris Osgood: 1,416,667
Jimmy Howard: 716,667

TOTAL CAP HIT: $54,985,667
REMAINING SPACE: $1,814,333

Detroit has enough cap space to bring in someone who can play on the fourth line for a small amount of money and perhaps fill the role Dallas Drake played during the 2007-08 season. A player like Mike Grier or Manny Malhotra could fit the bill. If Andreas Lilja cannot return to the lineup that would free up another $1.25 million and give Detroit additional salary cap space. Ken Holland has also talked about trading a defenseman as he has said he doesn’t want to start the season with 8 defenseman. So if Lilja can return to the lineup another blueliner will likely be traded which will free up some cap space.

Last year maxing out the cap space during the off-season made sense since the team was able to sign Marian Hossa. With questions about goaltending and scoring I’d like to see the team save themselves a decent amount of cap space so they can afford to address at least one of these concerns if they look like they are a serious problem next season.

Red Wings Uncategorized

July 11th, 2009
Categories: Red Wings . Author: Dave . Comments: No Comments

Just the mere thought of Detroit being able to sign Marian Hossa to a long-term deal at somewhere in the neighborhood of $4 million was obscene. The fact he signed with the Blackhawks sucks but he showed he wasn’t interested in signing for a max contract like Edmonton threw at him last year and truly wanted the best combination of playing for a team with a good shot at winning a Cup while also being paid close to what his true value is as a hockey player.

I’m not a big believer in karma but there’s a bit of it here for Red Wings fans who experienced schadenfreude at the expense of Pittsburgh when Hossa left for what he thought were greener pastures last summer.

On the one hand I’m bummed that Detroit wasn’t able to sign Hossa. It would have been great to be able to watch the Wings thumb their nose at Gary Bettman and the salary cap that was put into place for cities that have no following and have done nothing to grow the sport. And I agree with Ken Holland’s stance here that if you can get Hossa to agree to such a low cap hit that you absolutely must find a way to fit him onto your roster.

But Hossa and his agent made the decision moot by signing with Chicago. Living in Chicago I can tell you first hand how much my hatred of the Blackhawks grew this year after being long dormant. It’s tough to hate a team that has been as bad as Chicago has been during my time here. And they had next to no fan base due to the way Bill Wirtz and Bill Pulford ran the organization. The Blackhawk resurgence has taken full bloom this past season and Hossa will help the team continue to improve. I just hope Mike Babcock is right when he talked this past season about how Chicago won’t be able to sign all of their players.

One thing I didn’t like that some Red Wings fans seemed to relish was how Marian Hossa felt like coming to Detroit for one year was his “best shot at winning the Cup”. In retrospect I can say it struck me that he was being a bit of a mercenary. It was a bit different than the previous season when Dallas Drake, who put off retirement, returned to Detroit in order to get one last shot at getting his name on the Cup. Oh I didn’t like signing Drake at the time but have no problem admitting I was completely wrong on that one. I also wasn’t thrilled with how the roster was almost impossible to adjust last year since Hossa’s salary put the team right up against the cap.

That’s not a criticism of Hossa and it’s certainly not a criticism of Ken Holland, more the circumstances as they were. With that being said, when you have a chance to add a guy with Marian Hossa’s skill level you take that chance and do whatever you have to do to get him on your team. And if he would have signed in Detroit I’d be happy to have him back. But I don’t see losing him as being something Detroit can’t overcome. It’s having him sign with the Blackhawks that bugs me more than anything given that they are now a legitimate threat to Detroit for supremacy in the Central Division. Pittsburgh fans know exactly how that feels but they also won the Cup without the guy. Hopefully having him head to Chicago motivates the Red Wings this upcoming season the way it seemed to motivate the Pens in the Stanley Cup Finals.

I hope that Ken Holland will leave a small amount of cap space so the team can call up and develop their younger players. Justin Abdelkader scored two more goals than Marian Hossa in the Stanley Cup Finals. Granted he wasn’t playing against the competition Hossa was and he’ll never have Hossa’s skill level, but he proved he could chip in at the absolute highest level. It would be nice to see what Jakub Kindl could do during what might very well be Nick Lidstrom’s last season.

If there were no salary cap the Red Wings likely would have been able to sign Marian Hossa and keep a dominant team intact. Detroit has done a pretty nice job though developing talent over the years and Ken Holland has done a masterful job manipulating the salary cap to keep that talent in Red Wings uniforms. So they’ve been able to sign homegrown players like Pavel Datsyuk, Hank Zetterberg and Johan Franzen to long-term deals that will make them Red Wings for life.

That’s why I’m not worried so much about being able to replace guys like Marian Hossa and Ty Conklin and Mikael Samuelsson. Detroit won’t replace Hossa’s skill but they have a steady stream of guys like Darren Helm and Jonathan Ericsson and Justin Abdelkader knocking on the door who should be able to start contributing during the regular season and deep into the playoffs.

Red Wings

July 5th, 2009
Categories: Red Wings . Author: Dave . Comments: No Comments