Red Wings Roundtable

Dear regular viewers,

Recently I was asked to participate in a Red Wings’ bloggers roundtable with 10 other blogs. In a ranking of the blogs strongest to weakest, Babcock’s Death Stare finished 12th.

But anywho, for the next 11 days every Red Wings blog will post up a question that they asked every other blogger along with the answers for that question. The festivities kick off today as Winging It In Motown has a series of questions regarding Olympic loyalties, future NHL participation, and the fatigue effect on the Wings this year. Head on over there and check it out, I was really impressed with the quality of questions and answers involved in this thing. George at Snapshots will have tomorrow’s piece. Stay tuned, it’s good stuff.

- Kyle

SKY IS FALLING!: Hudler’s homeless?

Pew pew pew!!

Now I was more than happy to get the Hudler situation over and done with, and while I do respect the guy still, I hate these Sundin/Heatley/Hudler situations that tend to drag themselves on for the whole summer. That said, those guys are still good. Meanwhile I’ve gotten to the point where I wouldn’t feel bad if Brett Favre was smote from the heavens. Yeah it’s ESPN’s fault for sensationalizing everything the guy does, and yeah I understand it’s hard to walk away from all that you love, but holy hell make a decision man.

Anyway, that’s probably the most I’ll ever talk about Brett Favre on this blog. This is a slightly different circumstance. This just jumped to my attention over at Kukla’s Korner, as reported by David Staples at the Cult of Hockey. The IIHF has officially banned Jiri Hudler from playing in “sanctioned games” — which covers KHL games. You read that right: as of this moment Jiri Hudler is banned from playing in the KHL.

Now my strengths lie more in game analysis and judging players I feel, and less in the legal speak and babble of something like this. Since I haven’t seen this on any other blog that might know this better than I do, this is all going to be merely speculation. To me, it sounds like there are only two options here.

The IIHF is “technically” the governing body over all worldwide ice hockey but it’s authority doesn’t really extend over the border, USA Hockey and Hockey Canada make more of the decisions regarding what happens to the NHL. This sounds like a decision that’s going to go to an appeal, but to me, as I understand it, Hudler might be forced to come back to North America or maybe play in some unsanctioned men’s league in Morocco or something.

The only thorn I see in that plan is, as the article states, both the Red Wings and the Czech hockey federation gave Hudler the okay to play in the KHL. In fact, he’s already played in several exhibition games. To me, that would make it seem like an appeal might be pretty successful since you have the backing of most of the parties involved. However, the NHL did put up a stink about it and they might be able to flex some muscle on the IIHF. And I’m sure if Detroit had the choice between having Hudler at the contract he was awarded in arbitration and giving those minutes to Jason Williams, well, then sorry Williams, but you’re on the 4th line again. Detroit could complicate the arbitration process, I would think.

So that leaves the other option of coming back to North America. Since he did pass through arbitration, he would have nowhere else to play but Detroit, on a two-year deal at a $2.875 cap hit.

I’ll update this a little later when I can read a few more opinions on the matter, but that seems to be it in my mind. The IIHF isn’t going to change their mind after just making an unprecedented decision like this (and, most likely, taking their time making it, as this situation has been dead for two weeks now). There’s no other options for him from what I can tell.

So hypothetically speaking, where would this leave Detroit?

In a giant, heaping cap mess, that’s where. According to CapGeek, Hudler would put Detroit $3,845,653 over the cap. Detroit only has five players that make that amount and none are of the variety that you would want to get rid of. Obviously, Lilja is going to start on LTIR and if it came down to squeezing cap dollars, you can be assured that he will stay on LTIR until the exact day that it’s convenient to Detroit. That bumps us down to a sleeker but still pretty miserable $2,595,653 over the cap. Dammit.

I do want Hudler back, looking at it from the standpoint of “he is a good player, and he makes our team better.” But the timing in this absolutely sucks. A week after we give Bertuzzi a contract, a possibly generous contract given that our cap space wasn’t supposed to go anywhere else. And that contract gave us $3 million in contracts over the span of two weeks as we signed Bertuzzi and Williams. Williams was met with expected groans, but I was okay with it. I was less okay with it when they signed Bertuzzi and I’m even less cool with it now because his contract now looks like a bit of an albatross.

That is cap space on a 14 forward, 7 defensemen roster, though. With Lilja on IR, Stuart and Kronwall could be traded and we would be comfortable. But that’s not a scenario many fans had been bracing themselves for. I would not want to lose either, but I’d rather move one of them than Filppula, as their minutes could mostly be eaten up by Jonathan Ericsson. It would also give Jakub Kindl a better chance of being called up and he could compete with Lebda and Meech (who now look rather important with their smaller cap hits).

An interesting candidate would be Tomas Holmstrom. At $2.25, he and Meech would clear the cap space for Hudler. That would all hinge in his current condition though. Many noticed he lost a step in the playoffs and everyone has questioned how long will he be able to hold out. If Detroit is not comfortable with his health, he could be moved. I think his season was fine and he will be effective on the top line again.

The other issue is that if you combined the defensive abilities of Leino/Williams/Hudler/Bertuzzi, you still wouldn’t have a Selke candidate. I think a lot of fans will single those guys out as ones who can be moved, but it’s a risky situation. If Leino gets sent to the AHL, he’s going back to Finland and he’s not going to be very keen on coming back. You straight up lose an asset right there and you’re still $1.7 million over.

If you could somehow get rid of Williams (I’d rather keep Bertuzzi since their contracts are the same), Maltby and Meech would leave us comfortably under the cap. I’m just looking at that as our three most expendable assets, but it’s highly unlikely Detroit would move Maltby. However, they’ve never been $3.8 million over the cap in the last week of August either, so we’ll see what actually happens when this situation gets resolved.

If all else fails on the trading front, keep in mind a player can be waived and buried into the AHL. You’d hate to see a guy like Homer there (and he’d likely flee to Sweden) but it’s always an option.

I will definitely update this as this new twist unfurls. Just want to get a few opinions on whether he’s worth bringing back and in favor of who? Kenny (and Ryan Martin) is/are going to need to work some serious magic if this decision stands up.

And just as I finish this post, I realize the Cult of Hockey link is down. Maybe some premature or partially false information? We’ll see.

SKY MIGHT NOT BE FALLING CALIBER UPDATE: Just reading some opinions from HF, which are never credible, but some have some merit. For starters, it sounds like the KHL doesn’t really care if you’re denied a transfer card, so they may go against the IIHF’ wishes and Hudler override the IIHF’s decision (override the governing body, that’s a pretty funny statement on how the KHL operates, eh?). Additionally, several posters have called out “Sovietski Sport,” which is what the original article (which is still down after two hours) cited in it’s article, as somewhat of an unreliable source. I’ll be back online later today, but it appears that this situation might have blown up bigger than it needed to.

LATE NIGHT UPDATE: Sounds pretty all-but-official that the KHL doesn’t really care about any of this and Hudler stays on board there. However I’ve gathered this mostly through HFBoards and Twitter speculation and nobody all too official. Still no fix on the original link. I’d say this is 95% bullshit at this point, but the whole thing goes to show you that there’s probably never going to be an official end point to this thing. He’ll play in Russia but still during the season there will be random rules and shady dealings in Russia that will lead to this kind of speculation. I wouldn’t count on anything major until next offseason, though.

Vigilante, Lemieux invited to camp

Quick post in the training camp department this afternoon. When I posted the Austin Fyten news I figured there would probably be a few more invitations handed out, but I think that Coetzee, Fyten, and Whitley are it for the prospect’s team. Detroit managed to secure a nearly full roster of just drafted players this year, usually they have more than a few spots open and they’ll invite more guys than they need in case of injuries and so they can have more competition among the free agent tryouts. This year, with 13 forwards, 7 defensemen, and 3 goalies it looks like Detroit is done inviting players.

However, the training camp roster came out today and it boasts two minor league invitees: Francis Lemieux and John Vigilante. To some of you, both of these names are very familiar. Detroit acquired Lemieux in 2007-08 for minor league forward Brett Engelhardt as Engelhardt felt he should be called up. Lemieux was a struggling prospect in the Montreal system and showed some life once he became a Griffin. Detroit didn’t elect to re-sign him that offseason, but he stayed on with the Griffins and caught fire playing with Evan McGrath and Francis Pare. He put up 13 goals and 29 points last season.

John Vigilante, other than being one of the top five best hockey names ever, is familiar to anyone who’s a fan of the Plymouth Whalers. Originally from Dearborn, Vigilante is one on the lengthy list of Michigan-born, college-bound players that the Whalers convinced to play for them. Vigilante spent four full seasons with the Whalers and left as one of their highest scoring players ever. On a personal level, he is probably one of my favorite Whalers of all time. In juniors he was really fun to watch. Fast skater, quick hands, lethal shot. By the looks of his stats he never caught on once he turned pro, when he signed with the Nashville Predators. He signed with Columbus last season and struggled in Syracuse before being loaned out to Quad City.

Detroit is two contracts shy of the 50-contract limit, so all of the tryouts I’ve covered would have to be insanely impressive to earn a deal. I would love to see Vigilante especially earn an AHL contract with the Griffins if he doesn’t get one with Detroit. He’s 24 so he’s no longer a bluechip prospect, but he’s a fun guy to watch and I’d like to see him as a depth player for Grand Rapids.

In other free agent tryout news, according to CBC’s Elliotte Friedman’s Twitter, Aaron Downey is attending Phoenix’s camp as a tryout.

Lastly, the news of these tryouts came about because Detroit’s training camp roster is out. And with that, we finally know Detroit’s new numbers. Here’s what all of the new players will be rocking (keeping in mind that pretty much everyone except Helm and Ericsson apparently changes their high “camp number” if/when they make it to the NHL).

44 – Todd Bertuzzi
73 – Mitchell Callahan
70 – Willie Coetzee
17 – Patrick Eaves
57 – Landon Ferraro
65 – Austin Fyten
63 – Francis Lemieux
56 – Andrej Nestrasil
32 – Kris Newbury
59 – Francis Pare
72 – Tomas Tatar
64 – John Vigilante
29 – Jason Williams
15 – Jeremy Williams

74 – Adam Almquist
04 – Andy Delmore
45 – Travis Ehrhardt
54 – Gleason Fournier
37 – Doug Janik
58 – Sebastien Piche

36 – Jordan Pearce
66 – Chris Whitley

Austin Fyten invited to camp

Today, RedWingsCentral, easily the best source for all training camp news, released Detroit’s prospect roster. The site seems to be undergoing some serious server issues after their last update, but the text will show up if you wait a minute or two.

But on the roster are three free agent invitees.

First is Willie Coetzee, a teammate of Landon Ferraro in Red Deer who I briefly mentioned at the bottom of this post. Second is someone I haven’t mentioned yet, but was invited to Detroit’s camp in early July — Chris Whitley. Whitley is not the typical Red Wings invitee. He’s a 26 year old goaltender from the CIS. The CIS is the Canadian Interuniversity Sport, which is the league of Canadian university teams. The league is comprised of mainly players that have graduated from major junior hockey and haven’t signed professional contracts (read: not top level prospects). However, the league has produced a handful of NHLers, the bigger names being Steve Rucchin, Joel Ward, Cory Cross, P.J. Stock, and of course, Stu Grimson. Certainly, not the most scouted place in the word.

But from the sound of things, Whitley is one of the more sought after players coming out of the CIS. He played five seasons for Lakehead University and drew some NHL interest. Detroit invited him to camp and he’ll battle with Thomas McCollum and Jordan Pearce for time during prospect camp. However, it’s doubtful he’s anything more than a warm body, as Detroit already has 5 goalies for 5 goaltending spots, but best case scenario for Whitley find him signing a contract with the Toledo Walleye, possibly earning a callup to Grand Rapids if injuries take hold, or something. Otherwise, he’s signed a contract with the CHL’s Allen Americans.

The new name on the list is Austin Fyten, a member of the WHL’s Lethbridge Hurricanes. I can’t dig up a whole lot on him. But you better believe if he’s from the WHL, then WHL scout Marty Stein has found him, and he seems to love the average size, speedy, and moderately skilled two-way type of players like Darren Helm and last year’s tryout discovery, Brent Raedeke.

The whole roster is available for viewing here. No big surprises. The only professional players are Jan Mursak, Cory Emmerton, Sergei Kolosov, and Logan Pyett. Many players that will be playing in Sweden don’t show up because this bumps into the start of Swedish camps, so it’s nice to see that Adam Almquist is coming over anyway. Tomas Tatar is also coming, and this will likely be Detroit’s last chance at trying to convince him to come to North America, if they’re as interested in that as they’re rumored to be. The Plymouth Whalers currently hold his OHL rights.

TAHHHDDDDD

Don’t watch past 1:03!!

Rust happens to bloggers, too. I started writing something yesterday about how I didn’t believe the Bertuzzi rumor, but I would take him back, but I would prefer they left a spot open for training camp and invited some free agents to compete with Je. Williams, Newbury, Abdelkader, McGrath, etc. Then last night Ken Holland confirmed that they are talking to Bertuzzi, so about an hour ago I started writing about how I’m thinking it’ll probably get done late in the week, then my TwitterFox starts blowing up letting me know that it’s done.

So the 2007 reunion is complete (hopefully — no Calders, Haseks, or, especially, Bobby Langs or else I snap) and Bertuzzi is in. The rumor was a one-year deal at $1.5 million. I’m not too crazy about the terms if those are true, but whatever, he fits under the cap so why get hung up on a couple hundred thousand?

But I’m seeing a lot of “why does Detroit want to take a chance on this guy again?” And your answer is “well, they never really wanted to let him go in the first place.” Detroit had a one-year deal worth $4 million on the table for Bertuzzi in the 2007 offseason, but Bertuzzi signed with Anaheim for two years at that same dollar amount. Most likely, that ended up for the best because Bertuzzi was bought out last offseason by Anaheim and signed in Calgary for last year.

He’s still not the Todd Bertuzzi of old, very clearly. But I think he will be effective in Detroit. I thought he was good before. He was coming off a pretty nasty injury and was still fairly effective in a third line role. But because of the injuries and all the time he missed, he never got a shot as a scorer. Like Jason Williams before him, he was stuck with Bobby Lang while he was here. I find that to be a redeeming quality.

I’m settling on indifference for this signing. I like it, but it makes me like the Williams signing less. Both of these guys have some serious flop potential, they’re both inconsistent. But I think Bertuzzi can have more success here. I do think he’s getting a bum reputation here already. People are forgetting that he didn’t suck the first time he was here. It goes down as a questionable trade for Ken Holland, because he was supposed to be scorer but he didn’t get much time as anything more than a checker.

If anything, everyone’s who has been bitching about giving up Shawn Matthias for him should be happy that we’ll be getting more than 24 games out of Bertuzzi now, and meanwhile no one wants to mention that Matthias was a team worst -34 in his first professional year but people are still convinced we gave up too much for Bertuzzi. I feel crazy that I watched him a handful of times in Calgary last year and I didn’t see this “no grit” or “lazy” business that some people are throwing around. Is he a Selke candidate? God no. But he’s got gas left in the tank and he’s ridiculously strong. Babcock isn’t going to stand for anything less than adequate defensive play.

I don’t think anyone should be concerned about our offense. If you’ll recall, a lot of people were concerned when Detroit ditched Bertuzzi, Lang, and Calder because we “lost” our 2nd line. But Filppula and Hudler more than filled in for that. We’re not going to score as many goals as we did last year, but I think we have 4 lines that can do some damage, and we have the versatility to get a couple really different looks.

The minutes taken up by Hossa will be most likely distributed through Datsyuk, Zetterberg, Franzen, and Filppula. Leino is basically Hudler, as far as I’m concerned. Helm gives us four exceptional centers. Then you’ve got a slate of three guys who are all boom or bust. You’ve got the ex-star in Todd Bertuzzi, someone who has shown flashes of the ability that he has but has overall become a secondary contributor. You’ve got Jason Williams, who was one of the best point-per-game players on the market (if you don’t count his stint in Atlanta). And Patrick Eaves, who is all about speed and hard work which have shown a couple of times are the most important ingredients in the recipe for success in Detroit.

But more importantly than depth, I like this because it gives us accountability. I, like many others, have tried to find many solutions over the past few years to get Kirk Maltby out of the lineup on a regular basis. I’ve seen a few Maltby-fans saying that it’s going to be Maltby or Ville Leino, and sorry, but no it’s just going to be Maltby. The guy plays like 6 minutes a night even strength. But is Maltby going to see no time at all? Of course not. You’ve now got 13 NHL forwards on the NHL team. That’s 13 real ones, not 12 and Derek Meech. Maltby is very guilty of going through the motions during the middle of the season. Kris Draper gets that way from time to time as well.

The way I see it, you’ve always got the option to bench players who aren’t giving a complete effort. Maltby and Draper are prime candidates. If Williams is as useless as some people try to tell me, he’ll be there. If Ville Leino decides to play in Detroit like he did in Grand Rapids after he was demoted by Detroit, he’s in the press box. Then you’ve got a slate of guys in Holmstrom, Franzen, Eaves, and Bertuzzi who have all seen the injured reserve list a few times in the past couple of seasons, if any of them even have a hangnail you can sit them for a few games and know you’ve got Kirk Maltby waiting in the wings and actually playing with desire since he’s a competitive guy who’s not going to be happy with the press box. Accountability. No excuse for falling apart midseason again.

So by the time I’m done writing this, I now see that Bertuzzi is official at $1.5 million. Big deal? Not really. Let’s look at what we have.

With Lilja on LTIR, we’re exactly $279,347 under the cap. That’s not enough room to make a big splash at the trade deadline, but it is enough to at least call a few players up for Grand Rapids for a game or two when we need to, unlike last season. Holland all but confirmed today that Lilja will start the season on LTIR. Things get interesting if he comes off, because if he only misses a month or two, even a Lebda trade leaves the Wings over the cap. But as far as I know, Lilja would become pro-rated. If he misses half the season, he’ll only cost Detroit ~$600,000. Move Meech or Lebda at that point, and you’re under the cap. Follow me? I haven’t seen any confirmation but I’m nearly certain that that’s correct. Either way, Lilja’s got more problems than just his concussion. I have hope, but there’s a very real possibility he might not play hockey again.

I’m a line geek, so let’s look at my usual two sets of line combinations.

#1
Zetterberg – Datsyuk – Holmstrom
Leino – Filppula – Franzen
Cleary – Helm – Bertuzzi
Eaves – Draper – Williams

#2
Cleary – Datsyuk – Holmstrom
Bertuzzi – Zetterberg – Franzen
Leino – Filppula – Williams
Eaves – Helm – Draper

I like the second combination because you can role all four lines. If Leino ends up being a defensive liability, it would be easy to flip Eaves and him around or something.  But in both of those situations, I don’t know how you can be concerned with Bertuzzi as a guy who won’t play defense or won’t be giving a full effort. His linemates will bail him out at times for sure, but I don’t know how you can look at a potential Bertuzzi, Zetterberg, and Franzen line and not smirk a bit.

The beginning of a wonderful friendship.

But the big question on everyone’s mind is who gets #44? Bertuzzi wore it here before, but has also worn #7 (retired) and #4 (which hasn’t been worn since rumors that Detroit might retire Red Kelly’s number). However, Patrick Eaves has worn #44 in Ottawa and Carolina! Who will carry the tradition and honor behind the #44 that has boasted such Red Wings as Aaron Downey, Mark Hartigan, Mark Mowers, Yan Golubovsky, and Anders Eriksson? Only time will tell, I’m afraid.

New Wings

Always a pioneer in the ways of innovation and technology in the blogging world, I believe I’ve discovered the solution to the lulls of summer. I love free agency as much as the next guy, but after a while, it gets a little tired. Your roster is basically ready and you want the puck to drop. It’s understandable, I know.

Part of the problem of free agency is with all the shuffling, it can be a little hard to picture what players look like in their new jerseys. That’s where I come in.

Working carefully with the Swedish government, I’ve received a patent on a machine that generates pictures of players in their new uniforms. This allows you, the consumer, to better adjust to these sights so that when the season starts, there is no initial jersey-shock.

So I present to you, Patrick Eaves and Jason Williams:

This is what happens when there’s nothing to do at work.

Worst Player in League Signs with Detroit

Apparently.

This morning it was confirmed, Detroit has signed Jason Williams to a one-year contract. Williams was discovered by Detroit as an undrafted free agent and spent seven years in the organization before heading to Chicago in the three team deal that brought Kyle Calder to Detroit. He passed through Chicago, Atlanta, and then Columbus, and now he’s back to piss in everyone’s cornflakes this morning.

While I understand the gist of the hate, I think a lot of fans are getting hung up on minor details and don’t realize that Williams can play. Is he going to win a Selke? No. Is he a nightmare on the point of the powerplay? Yes. But what else is wrong with him? He’s a decent skater, he’s a great puckhandler, he’s got a quick wristshot, and he knows Detroit’s system.

I still don’t think he’s a lock to end up back on the powerplay. I know Babcock is enamored with having a right-handed shot on the powerplay, but he’s also enamored completely with Jonathan Ericsson. A lot of fans, before and after this signing, have been spreading the theory that Babcock doesn’t even like Williams. If he doesn’t, then why would Williams end up there? Either way, I think with Leino, Filppula, Cleary, and now Williams and even Eaves all as players fit for second unit powerplay duty, you need a shooter. Franzen could be on this line, but he’ll be in front of he net.

But I am concerned if he does end up there. I hate him there, but I think he’s fine everywhere else in the lineup. What I don’t want to hear about Williams is that he whines, and that he didn’t want to come back to Detroit. As I mentioned earlier, the whining incident came when he was in the midst of a slump and he was benched. I don’t like the comments he made either about the way Babcock benched him, but I think it’s just frustration boiling over. No one likes to be benched, in a league full of cliche-spewers and boring interviews, I don’t mind a player speaking his mind. It was just the one time, no big deal to me.

Secondly, if he didn’t want to come back to Detroit he wouldn’t have, simple as that. He did grumble about waiting for other offers, what’s so wrong with that? God forbid not every player in the league wants to immediately come to Detroit on the first offer they receive. Let’s wait until the cap hit comes in to be sure, but I have a hunch that he got lowballed. Everyone gets lowballed, especially players with no other NHL offers. That can’t feel too good. Again, I don’t know how fans can make a big fuss about a player wanting to make a smart career choice.

What we lost this offseason is offense, and Williams provides that without the price tag Alex Tanguay or Nikolai Zherdev, but he’ll probably outscore anyone who’s left in the free agent pool save for these two.

I think this deal finally puts Detroit into the “cap relief” category as well. With just over $2 million in cap room, and the way Williams felt around for a week before signing, I’d be willing to wager the cap hit will be in the range of $1 million to $1.5 and not a penny higher. Bruce MacLeod just suggested on Twitter that Holland says 22 is the ideal roster and 7 is the ideal number of defensemen, but I think as long as Detroit’s under the cap with this they won’t move anybody. If Lilja’s hurt they don’t even need to worry about it. No trade will come until they know if he can start the season or not.

Line combinations?

Datsyuk – Zetterberg – Holmstrom
Leino – Filppula – Franzen
Cleary – Helm – Williams
Maltby – Draper – Eaves

or

Holmstrom – Zetterberg – Franzen
Leino – Datsyuk – Cleary
Helm – Filppula – Williams
Maltby – Draper – Eaves

I don’t see how Williams will look out of place centered by one of our current centers. I seem to be the only one pointing out that Williams played with Robert Lang when he finally actually got ice time his last two years here. That guy’s a cancer, it was a nightmare. Now we’re loaded with two-way centers and guys like Holmstrom, Hudler when he was here, and now Williams will be allowed to flourish because there isn’t as much of a burden to be spectacular defensively.

Free Agent #1 — Patrick Eaves

Just as I’m ready to head out, my TwitterFox blows up with a bunch of tweets that Detroit’s signed Patrick Eaves. James Mirtle has the press release.

I’m a big fan of this signing, because even more than lazy players with good hands (Zherdev), I have an unnatural obsession with signing former big name prospects. Eaves is just this, having been a 1st round pick in one of the deepest 1st rounds of all time, 2003. However he’s not a complete bust — he scored 20 goals as a rookie the year after the lockout. Anyone who said then that Detroit would snap him up as a free agent in August 2009 was smoking some powerfully good drug.

A product of the US National Development Program, Eaves was a standout at Boston College, totaling 48 points his last year there. He had the Cy Young winning stat line as a rookie of 20-9, and even had 14 goals and 18 assists in 2006-07. The following year, on what was not a great Ottawa team, Eaves struggled, hurting his shoulder and putting up only 4 goals in 26 games. He was traded alongside Joe Corvo to Carolina for Mike Commodore and Cory Stillman.

He wasn’t a big hit in Carolina, it would seem. I don’t think they have the system for a player like him to flourish. Only 7 goals in his 85 games there. He was traded this offseason to Boston, but only to unload his contract. Boston bought him out the day after he was traded.

However, I actually really love the idea of Eaves as a Red Wing — I think this is a system for him. He’s very similar to what Dan Cleary was before he came a Red Wing. A first round pick that hasn’t entirely panned out (Cleary never scored 20 goals though) but has stuck in the NHL as an energy guy. Eaves will be right up there with Helm, Draper, and Lebda for fastest skater on the team, he has that kind of speed. He’s not incredibly skilled but like Cleary, he’s got a great wrist shot and his hands aren’t made of stone. He’ll probably end up on the 3rd or 4th line this year, but if he shows any signs of life offensively, I could see him being kept long-term and eventually moved into a 2nd/3rd line swingman. But I’m getting ahead of myself here.

It’s a one-year deal — no terms yet. I’d be shocked if it’s over $850,000. This still gives Detroit enough room to add a player in the $1.5-$2.0 million max range.

But hypothetically speaking, if they don’t sign anybody, how do people feel about this lineup?

Datsyuk – Zetterberg – Holmstrom
Leino – Filppula – Franzen
Cleary – Helm – Eaves (aka the OMG SPEED line)
Maltby – Draper – Abdelkader

or with the twins split up (and Maltby/Draper split up as an experiment, because I think it makes the 4th line better)

Holmstrom – Zetterberg – Franzen
Filppula – Datsyuk – Cleary
Leino – Helm – Maltby
Eaves – Draper – Abdelkader

Otherwise.. Eaves probably bumps down to the 4th line and we get a scorer for the 3rd line.

Postmania!

I usually don’t like to lump everything in together, but in the past 24 hours or so there have been four (!) entire news stories that qualify as interesting enough to post for me, so I’m going to cram it all in together, complete with headlines for each!

Hudlermania!

This Hudler business is finally over for now, as the arbitrator did end up awarding him a two-year deal, the first at $2.75 million, the second at $3 million. After a bunch of conflicting reports yesterday, it was finally discovered that both sides struck up this deal before the hearing, but apparently waited so it looked like the arbitrator handed down this decision so Hudler could look good for the KHL. Now that this side of the story is in print everywhere, I’m not sure how they feel about it. For the record, Holland kept his arbitration streak alive because he didn’t attend the hearing (neither did Hudler or his agent, apparently).

Matt from OnTheWings has a good piece on this issue. I’m more than through with covering this so I’ll leave this short. I will say, however, from my aforementioned night of watching Wings highlights I thought for a second I saw into the future. Maybe it’s because Hudler turns into an anime character when he’s celebrating a goal, but this is a guy who clearly likes playing for Detroit. In my opinion, this is all going to re-open next summer and I would not be shocked in the slightest if Hudler might pull the ol’ Kansas City Shuffle and try to break out of the KHL after only one year. I don’t see his NHL days over, yet.

Olympicmania!

A slew of Red Wings officially became Olympic hopefuls yesterday as Finland, Slovakia, and Russia named their rosters. I did a little reading on mainly message boards to get the gist of who’s actually expected to make the team. Of the guys named yesterday, Pavel Datsyuk is obviously a lock. Finland named Valtteri Filppula and Ville Leino. Filppula’s a lock, but I think Leino is more like a50/50 shot. The sentiment I got was that his status would depend on whether or not older guys like Teemu Selanne and Jere Lehtinen play, because most would prefer Leino in a scoring role and not on the 3rd or 4th line. In the more surprising variety, 2009 2nd round pick Tomas Tatar was named to Slovakia’s camp. He’s a long shot, Slovakia just named a few of their young stars so they could get experience, but it’s still a great compliment that Tatar is the only forward prospect on the list — they have high hopes for him. Who knows though, Slovakia is deep with NHL talent but you never know if they decide maybe Tatar deserves a 4th line or spare spot to get experience instead of a guy like Tomas Kopecky. That would be nice, eh?

Tatarmania!

Tatar wasn’t done making headlines with that, as now his future is back open for debate. As some may remember, I did mention the CHL Import Draft a few times over the offseason. To sum it up, basically, I suspected that the Plymouth Whalers might take Tatar in this draft, because they swung two pre-draft deals to get up to pick #3. However, Plymouth took 16-year-old Swedish sensation Gabriel Landeskog, and Tatar slipped to #6 to the Kitchener Rangers. I’ve tweeted a few times about Tatar news since then, but if you don’t follow me, I’ll recap the Tatar situation as best I can. Basically, Kitchener has been recruiting him heavily, but Tatar doesn’t want to upset his Slovakian club where he just signed a two-year deal. He said he would respect Detroit’s wishes in the matter, but Detroit stayed neutral and said Tatar could decide for himself. The most recent news was that Tatar sat down with his club and said he would play there unless he impressed the Wings and they signed him for Grand Rapids or something (which they don’t usually do with prospects so early). UPDATE: Looks like Landeskog wanted to be a Ranger, and the word is Tatar  still isn’t reporting.

Meanwhile, the speculation was that Landeskog wanted to play in the CHL and would report to Plymouth. However, just today, Plymouth traded Landeskog to Kitchener for Tatar and a boatload of draft picks. In my opinion, it sounds like Plymouth didn’t have a sure thing when they traded a bunch of assets to land Landeskog at #3, or maybe he just doesn’t like Plymouth (who knows?). Rather than lose him for nothing, they traded for Tatar, another player who might not report, and more picks for the future. I guess the hope is that Tatar makes some kind of impression at camp and Detroit encourages him to play a little closer to home and stick in Plymouth. Good news for Wings fans, I feel. It would give me a reason to come home and watch the Whalers more often than I did last year.

FreeAgentmania!

For those keeping score at home, subtract one and add one to Detroit’s free agent targets. Petr Sykora has said that contrary to reports, Detroit hasn’t made an offer for him. It sounds like he’s frustrated with the lack of interest and is leaning KHL.

However, today the Rangers walked away from Nikolai Zherdev’s arbitration award and he’s now an unrestricted free agent. Probably a longshot for Detroit because he was awarded $3.9 million in arbitration. But the word on the street is that he’s always liked Detroit, and who knows, maybe he’ll take a little discount for us.

He’s considered streaky and sometimes one-dimensional, but I’ve always been a fan of his. I think he’s an improvement over Hudler for sure. His raw skill is definitely better, though Hudler probably has the edge in hockey sense. Zherdev is a much better skater as well and I don’t see his defensive issues being a problem in Detroit. I just really like the idea of him on Datsyuk’s wing, nobody would be able to take the puck from them. If he’s looking at upper threes, there’s no shot Detroit’s interested, but I’d like to hope they’ll at least make a call on him.

Amusing musings in August

What is this post? Who knows? While I encourage further discussion on the current hot button topics, such as our good friend Jason Williams, I just can’t wait for Detroit to sign someone and end all the guessing. I guess my point here is, I’m finally really growing tired of offseason mode and I can’t stop thinking about next season. I’m definitely restless. I’m not sure if I ever mentioned it before, but I do remote data entry work and on days like today, ten-hour, late night Sunday shifts, the mind tends to drift. My managers might not want this broadcasted, but at times my focus shifts a bit to the web and I check up on the occasional free agent tracker or Google Reader, but alas, there was not much pumping out today.

One of the benefits of my job and my two monitor set up is I can afford to have a small window open in the corner of something interesting to watch. Since I’ve exhausted the list of shows I wanted to get into (Arrested Development, Breaking Bad, Heroes), I watched a ton of hockey today. My afternoon consisted of the Slovakia/USA World Junior upset that I never saw where recent draftee Tomas Tatar victimized Thomas McCollum for three goals (ok, one was an empty netter). This just aggravated my prospect craving so I watched a game from last September’s prospect tournament between Detroit and Atlanta (A+ performances from Abdelkader, Kindl, Larsson, and Axelsson). After a hockey break and a few episodes of Conan courtesy of Hulu, I somehow got to watching highlights on NHL.com. The last bit of my shift saw me watch the highlights of every single Red Wings playoff game. All except for one.

And somewhere between Brad Stuart introducing RJ Umberger’s brain to the inside of his skull and Darren Helm establishing himself as a rising star in this league with one short shift, the inspiration for a post like this hit me. There’s been a lot of free agent talk and I’ve put out some prospects filler, but I haven’t posted about the team itself in a while, and I feel like a few things need to be said. The message? It’s simple — we’re okay. We’re alright. We are not going anywhere.

Most fans of the team already know this. Hell, the mainstream media has been pretty good about it, other than a few columns a week about how this is the beginning of the end, and a whole cloud of smug coming from Chicago about how they’re the new team to beat in the Central now. But more on that later.

So now, at 1:30 AM on the first week of August, I’m incredibly fired up about hockey. About two months until meaningful hockey starts up and five weeks until people even start showing up to camp. So this is my release.

There has been a fair amount of people looking past the Wings this season. Which is fine with me, but I haven’t seen anything written to really refute them, and I guess that’s going to be my goal of this post. Maybe I’m a little insecure myself, who knows. I think the worst thing I said was that Detroit won the division, but maybe they won’t win 50 games. But now I think that’s a myth. I think it’s a myth that Detroit has lost 88 goals. I think it’s a myth that they’re not the team to beat in the West. I think it’s a myth that “the cap has finally caught up” to them, which is surprisingly a direct quote from Senior Vice President Jimmy Devellano.

First and most obviously, the Hossa loss is being made to be a bigger deal than it should have been. Everyone knew at the beginning of the year it’s a one-year window. At one point, some cap-savvy media people were thinking that Detroit would only be able to keep one of Zetterberg, Hossa, and Franzen in order to keep Samuelsson and Hudler, too, thinking a guy like Franzen in particular would figure out what he’s worth and walk away. But they were able to keep two, and were about $1 million in cap space away from keeping Hossa or both Samuelsson and Hudler. But remember, Detroit won the Cup without Hossa. From that team, Dallas Drake, Jiri Hudler, Mikael Samuelsson, Chris Chelios, and Dominik Hasek are gone. That’s not really a whole lot of turnover in two years when you consider how many young players they had on that team that have received new contracts since then.

No distractions anymore. I liked Hossa here, and I’d have taken him back if we found a way to fit him, but there’s no doubt that Hossa became a distraction in the Finals. He wasn’t scoring, so he took some heat, but then he played his ex-team and that became the rallying point. More pressure built up onto Hossa and I think he tried harder to score — too hard at times, even though he was still playing well off the puck. That’s gone now, and there hasn’t been a whole lot of talk about a third straight trip to the Finals for the Wings from the mainstream media. This team seems to play best when no one talks about them.

I don’t think we’ve really “lost” 88 goals. I get that it’s not supposed to be taken that literally, but the overall sentiment is that Detroit’s offense has taken a hit and the depth that everyone’s marveled about is supposedly gone. I don’t see it. They scored 38 goals more than last season, which, admittedly, looks to be a good summary of Hossa’s time here as he had 40 goals, but it’s actually their second highest total since the lockout — 2005-06 was higher.

Regardless of who we sign, we’ve still got our depth. In all likelihood, we’re going to sign somebody to a one-year deal that the fanbase will be torn on. Williams for example. There’s no doubt in my mind that whoever they sign can put up 50 points. But they’ll likely also make a few stupid mistakes defensively,they won’t really ever steal a game for us, and they’ll probably going to keep the fanbase split next offseason when you think about re-signing them. But they’re still going to have 3 solid scoring lines.

They’ve got a youth movement of sorts, but as the joke goes that Detroit is an old team, this is going to be an “old” youth movement. Darren Helm is a legitimate NHL player who has yet to score a goal outside of the months of May and June. He and Jonathan Ericsson have racked up so many games that neither are actually eligible for the Calder, though they’re still rookies in my book. Ville Leino barely makes the cut for both games played and age on the Calder ballot, and seems to be penciled in for 15-20 goals. Jimmy Howard, at 25, is finally ready for an NHL job and hopes to not break the trend of backup goalies that largely outplay the starter during the regular season (Legace, Osgood, Conklin). Abdelkader’s a young one, but won’t be out of place no matter how many games and minutes he plays.

There are plenty of redemption candidates on this team. It starts with Chris Osgood, who, pretty surprisingly, no one is actually doubting can get the job done. He was rough last season, and will probably hit a slump or two, but a lot of teams will kill for Osgood to be their guy going into the playoffs. Many, including myself, aren’t sure about Tomas Holmstrom as a regular shift player after a poor playoff performance, but despite his injury issues over the past two seasons, he’s still seems to be good for 25 a year. Brad Stuart, Niklas Kronwall, Dan Cleary, and even Kirk Maltby were all guys who were just remarkably better in the playoffs than in the rseason. Some guys are just born playoff performers, but even if you can get one of these guys to really step up for the regular season, that helps immensely.

It could be Cleary. When you think about the impact Hossa made, it starts with the prime offensive minutes that he ate up. He took Cleary out of the top six, and he didn’t really get a chance to get back there until the playoffs, when he went on a big scoring run. Henrik Zetterberg was on and off the top powerplay, and despite his 73 points on the year, you can probably pencil him back into the 85-90 range, especially if the Euro twins are reunited. Valtteri Filppula has definitely been the sexy pick to be the breakout player and I’m definitely on board. He was a guy who’s offensive production was higher in the playoffs, and honestly, the Hudler/Filppula/Samuelsson line was never my favorite. He’ll slide onto the second powerplay and probably center the second line for most of the year, he’s probably good for 50 points.

Johan Franzen — I don’t think even this guy thought he was this good. He’s 29 and all but he’s still raw as a scorer. He was never a big offensive player even in his junior days, I think he’s got a few years as a 40 goal scorer yet to uncover. Pavel Datsyuk is hitting his prime, where does he top out on points? Already touched on Leino and Helm as guys that are going to contribute. Regardless of who they sign, nothing says this team can’t challenge it’s goal total from last season.

Overall, the philosophy is better. Detroit had the same issues all season with clearing the puck out of the zone and getting too cute with the puck. Holland has said even though they’ve lost some offense, they can tighten up defensively. That’s the bigger issue — the team’s goals against rocketed up 60 and there’s no way Dallas Drake made that much of a difference. Consistent goaltending, and more attention to the penalty kill and taking care to not cause so many turnovers is going to be the key — not offense. I think we could very well be a better regular season team if we can stay motivated, but as we’ve all seen with the Wings over the years, motivation is sometimes a big if.

Who’s going to challenge us? Chicago is good, yes, but from a management standpoint their offseason has been a disaster, and you’ve got to believe Marty Havlat’s ghost will be haunting them as a reminder to what was so hyped as being a close, tight-knit team, will a real world dose of the coldness of the NHL business side of things have guys like Kane and Toews thinking about their future? They’re a talented team, but sometimes off-ice issues mount and things fall apart. See the 2008-09 Montreal Canadiens if you don’t believe me. Columbus is better, but like Chicago, we stomped them in the playoffs. St. Louis and Nashville, both will be challenging for playoff spots all year, but they’re not at division-contention level. The division is good, and it’s finally getting respect as one of, if not the, toughest in hockey, but there’s no reason to think Detroit can’t control each season series.

That’s a lot to think about, I suppose. I’m sure some of you were probably thinking this already, but I don’t know, I’m just ready to get this under way. Are all these things going to happen? Is everyone going to break out and Detroit’s going to win 50 games, easily? No, absolutely not, that’s not what I’m suggesting. But any combination of a majority of these things easily keep Detroit in that contention spot. And I have no doubts this team can succeed in the playoffs. For what’s mostly a young group, these guys have certainly seen some battles.

Bring it on.

Two more months.

Stealth edit – oh yeah, as I hoped, the arbiter shafted Hudler. The numbers are due out today and George Malik, despite being on vacation, seems to have broken the numbers first. If this Czech site is accurate, Hudler gets a 2-year deal worth $2.75 a season. After all this drama, that should make some fans smile. More on that tomorrow when more information leaks out.