It Won't Be Doan
Gloom and...well I wouldn't say "doom"...but most certainly gloom surrounding the quiet off-season that Detroit is having this summer.With big departures like Nick Lidstrom and Brad Stuart and Jiri Hudler (less so) and Tomas Holmstrom (probably)- we were expecting big additions like Ryan Suter or Zach Parise or Alex Semin or Matt Carle or Jason Garrison.
Or Shane Doan.
Instead - it appears that re-adding Mikael Samuelsson and getting Jordin Tootoo (who has a history of drinking problems and couldn't crack Nashville's lineup last season) along with looking inward to our crop of home grown youth seems to be the answer.
We opened up our check book to two players and when it didn't happen we made a concsious decision to not over-pay for mediocrity or potential.
Make the jump for more.
Case in point - Shane Doan would be a great addition to Detroit. He's a feisty veteran who is a wrecking ball come play-off time. Is he any sort of savior-type? Hardly. But would be a decent contributor. But he's not coming to Detroit. It just ain't happening.“Ken made an offer, but we haven't countered or had much negotiation." --Kerry Bross, Shane Doan's agent.
That quote comes to us from Khan(!) who has a source who reports that an Eastern Conference team has offered a four-year, $30 million contract. The source also said that the Wings were hoping to sign him for three years at between $4.5 - $5 million.
The agent says that no one has been eliminated from contention - but we all knnow that's just a ploy to leverage his negotiating power. We all need to prepare ourselves for the fact that Shane Doan will remain an enemy of Hockeytown.
$6+ million for a 35 year old who puts up decent but declining numbers? Yeah - I can't say I really blame Holland for pulling out of the running if that's what he decides to do. If it wasn't for all of the players we have failed to sign up to this point - this would seem like a no-brainer.
The restlessness continues.
Does Ken Holland have some inside information about the CBA talks? Hmmm....
We obviously need help on D, but as tjmendiola said, the new CBA is gonna cause the salary cap to come down, and a few of these teams are gonna have to shed salary to become cap compliant. While I was sad that we didn't get any of the big named free agents, I'm also not mad about being handcuffed to them for 10+ years when most of them won't be worth these contracts in 5 years time
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I get the feeling that the Wings management will just play the waiting game until the new CBA is announced, which is set to take effect when the current one expires on Sept. 15th (if they arrive at one). Currently the NHL is proposing a rollback of player revenue to the tune of 14%. The players and Fehr will fight to minimize the rollback but there WILL be a rollback....or no season, bottom line.
That being said, take a look at the heavy cap teams set for next year: Bruins, Wild (Parise, Suter, etc.), Sharks, Canucks...and these are the teams that may have to part with some of their salary. In 05-06, the season after the lockout, the Hurricanes and Oilers played for the Stanley Cup...neither of these two teams were even in the playoffs the year before the lockout. Because of the cap rollback the Edmonton was able to add Chris Pronger (in his prime at a 5 year/$31M contract) and the 'Canes added Cory Stillman (who had 21 goals, 55 assists) and Ray Whitney (17 goals, 38 assists) at only $1.5M a season.
So what I'm saying is... KH could go out and pick up a Colaiacovo, Kubina, Barker right now and pay top dollar or.....sit back with the cap space and watch as some of these teams are forced to dump quality players in lop sided trades. I know it will take a little while for everything to come to light but just sit back and enjoy the rest of your summer guys. The Wings have a plan, they always have a plan.
I'm a bit grumpy about Semin, but if Doan wants that much, Holland is right to let him go somewhere else. Doan's just not worth $7.5M a year.
But, when it comes down to it, I am still mightily disappointed in what's happened so far this summer, or rather what hasn't happened. Still, we have most of a season to shake things out, and trades can be made. And there are some really good guys in the system. There's no reason for pessimism.
Seeing as the rumor is Doan wants $7.5 million a year for 4 years, I don't really blame Holland for not pulling the trigger. If Doan wants to make ballpark what he got in Phoenix, I'd be happy to have him.
Holland has made many fine points regarding these ridiculously overpaid long-term deals really hampering teams in the future.
I just hope the new CBA prevents teams (like Chicago) from shipping their shitty players (goaltenders for Chicago) overseas to drop their cap hit entirely.
It would be BS if teams could (to use Weber, for example) sign a player for 110 mil for 13 years, then the salary cap get rolled back to something low like 50-55 mil, and suddenly they need to shed cap and just start shipping players overseas.
Question: If a team buys out a players contract, how much of that is applied to the their cap for the remainder of the players bought-out contract?
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Of course he does and he is going to take one of those shed players for a screamin' deal. When they scale back, Detroit's going to be completely safe because of it's cushion.
We'll all be thanking KH in the end. "In Ken we trust"
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These contracts this offseason are just too much! As much as I wanted some players, I don't blame Holland for not emptying the bank. I heard that in the new CBA salary caps may be less anyway.... We really need help on defense. I'm content with our forwards now, with Gustav Nyquist becoming a full timer, and I have high hopes for Damien Brunner. Guess well have to keep waitin for something to happen, Go Wings!
