An early look at who the Detroit Red Wings should target in Free Agency
By Bob Heyrman
Let’s face it; overall the Detroit Red Wings have experienced a tough season. Going into the year, we expected a rebuilding type of season, so this is nothing that should surprise us. In this article, we take a look at a few options to better the club come July 1st.
It has been an up and down season for the Detroit Red Wings. I expected a rollercoaster type of season, and I didn’t expect this to be a playoff team or anything close to it. I would argue at times throughout the season the Wings exceeded my expectations.
The Wings played very during stretches of the year, particularly in the first half of the season. For the first two months, they owned a top ten power-play and top ten penalty kill. Goaltender Jimmy Howard was posting nearly career numbers, not including wins of course but above average goals against average and save percentage.
Up until about two weeks before the NHL trade deadline, Jimmy Howard was second in the league with a 0.933 save percentage at even strength. It seemed his trade stock was as high as it’s ever been in his career, but Detroit Red Wings general manager Ken Holland seemed to miss the buck and failed to move him before his stock plummeted. It’s been much more “down” than “up” for Jonathan Bernier who was signed to a three-year deal last summer to share the net with Howard.
The Detroit Red Wings are fairly deep up front. They have a nice mix of young up and coming forwards blended with a handful of aging veterans who struggle to find any offense with bad, nearly untradable contracts. Not only are the salaries too high, but most of them will also have to be protected in the upcoming expansion draft due to their no movement or no trade clauses.
The Detroit Red Wings’ back-end is suspect at best. Its a mix of old veterans with little tread left on their tires and yet to be seasoned youngsters who are still learning how to change a tire. Filip Hronek has been exceptional of late. He’s been the teams’ top defender over the last six games.
Dennis Cholowski had a solid rookie campaign for the Wings especially being a surprise player to make the roster. He was sent down to work on the defensive side of his game after 52 games with the Wings. His possession stats are below average, but not horrible considering he’s playing on a below averaged Red Wings team. He was active on the power play, but it was evident he’s a work in progress in his own zone. Expect him to be on the opening night roster to start next season.
The question marks start with Niklas Kronwall and end with Jonathan Ericsson. Will Kronwall return for another season? The Wings have said if he wants to play he will be re-signed. If he retires, it will open a spot on the back-end for a more talented, younger player. What will the Wings do with Ericsson? Would they dare buy out the final year of his contract? Would they try and bury part of it in the minors by placing him on waivers? Or the more likely scenario, they will allow him to play out the final year of his deal.
The team also will have a trade market for a few players including Luke Glendening, Trevor Daley & Mike Green. Taking some of this into consideration and having around 19 million to spend, we explore a few free agents the Detroit Red Wings should target in free agency this summer.
Note: We don’t expect the team to sign all of these players, just a few they need to consider.