Trade Deadline Thoughts

Well, the 2013 NHL Trade Deadline has passed, and the Detroit Red Wings made no trades at the last minute to bolster the forwards, defense, or goaltending of their team. That sound you year is half the hockey world slamming down the panic button for the soon-to-be-Dead-Things.

Hold on a minute, geniuses.

If you'd like a rather complete explanation as to why the Detroit Red Wings did little to improve the team, here's The Malik Report with a litany of quotes, tweets, and some comments from a host of people who cover the Red Wings on a daily basis. This should satisfy your need to know why nothing was done, or at least give you a modicum of sanity while you tear your hair out over Detroit missing out on overpaying for Jay Bouwmeester.

Most Red Wings fans (I hope) have accepted the reality that the Detroit Red Wings are rebuilding. Management are doing everything they can to keep the team competitive enough to continue making the playoffs and keep the Western Conference annoyed that a playoff slot is going to be taken up by those bastards in the red and white. At this point, it's all anyone can do not to despise the Red Wings and their success. Let's face it, the Red Wings are that guy in the office you can't stand to be around because he has the nice car, the nice apartment, the better cell phone, and that poisonous smile that you just want to sucker punch at lunch time while he eats from his expensive Tupperware containers. If you're not a fan, you're tired of hearing about them and their success and their banners and their late round draft picks who keep taking the damn puck away from you. You're tired of it all, and you want this team buried in the standings.

But they just won't die. They aren't dead yet, and it kills you to know they are rebuilding on the fly and won't go down without snagging one more chance at the Stanley Cup. For those of us grounded in reality in Motown (the figurative one that the global fan community belongs to), we get it. We knew a season like this was coming. We knew a trade deadline would loom and there would be a market the Red Wings couldn't get anything done in because it was time to stop trading away youngsters and draft picks. 2013 was the year Ken Holland said "ain't nobody got time for that". (Note: he didn't say that. But we were all thinking it.)

Deadline Day 2013 was a perplexing array of trades that, on paper, would be wholeheartedly rejected by fan communities. If you want a(n in)comprehensive look at what it means to play "Dumbass Trade Roulette", check out Twitter or HFBoards' trade section, where nothing matters but your top five prospects and first round draft picks. Seriously, don't go there because you will hurt yourself tripping over the lopsided proposals. If you must, go with the understanding that it's all trolling and jokingly bad trade proposals. Otherwise your head will be spinning and you'll be vomiting up pea soup faster than you can say "Filppula for a 2nd round pick and a prospect".

Detroit didn't really participate in the deadline, unless you count missing out on JayBouw and sending Kent Huskins to a place that needed him far more than Detroit. I honestly wish him well and hope he finds a place in Philly. Last time we sent a player their it worked out well. Right, Ville Leino? I do love what you've done in Buffalo. Snark aside for a moment, Ken Holland didn't indulge the bizarre trade market this year in order to spare the prospects from doom elsewhere and preserve the draft picks the team desperately needs to refresh its roster. How many times can we re-sign Todd Bertuzzi and Mikael Samuelsson to contract and deny our gems like Tomas Tatar and Gustav Nyquist a chance to shine? I guess we'll find out in July.

A quick glance at Detroit's injured players, we see it includes the third-line center and penalty killing machine Darren Helm, the above mentioned Todd Bertuzzi, Mikael Samuelsson (more than one injury this season), Kyle Quincey, and now Henrik Zetterberg, although thankfully the captain is not going to miss a lot of time.

Well, that list includes, in a pessimistic analysis, two thirds of the third line, a second line RW, and our theoretical second pairing defenseman. We did just get Carlo Colaiacovo back, so when Quincey returns there's the second pairing finally back in one piece. Within a couple of weeks, Detroit will have its depth scoring back from its veteran wingers and hopefully special teams will see a boost from the speedy Helm.

So, did Detroit need to do anything at the deadline?

Nope. So we didn't panic and throw away our future for the sake of acquiring players that would cost a fortune in salary. I guess you should give Ken Holland an "F" for that effort.

If you thought the Red Wings would do something like throw a pupu platter of picks and prospects for Pominville or let a team grab a gob of our greenhorns for Gaborik, you can't see the forest for the trees here in Detroit. I'd lend you my glasses, but they're both dirty and unsuitable for people who lack depth perception. Pun entirely intended.

Now, I won't go far as to suggest a certain Patriarch of the Puck is barking up the wrong tree, because I adore him, but to consider an idle Detroit who are supposedly a "win-now team" the only true failure among a class of 30 teams is folly. To punish a team desperate for a rebuild who chose not to buy up pieces in a patchwork job is folly. Detroit can no longer afford to give their young stars the boot to other teams looking to sell assets because they've done it for too long. The magical spring of Datsyuks and Zetterbergs has run dry. There's plenty of great prospects in the system, despite the tired trope of Red Wings fans over-hyping their future players, and there's no reason to toss aside a plan for a rebuild just to continue a playoff streak that is neither the longest in NHL history nor relevant in the modern age of hockey. 21 seasons is playoffs is impressive. Four Stanley Cups is impressive. Remaining competitive is impressive. You know what's more impressive? Bouncing back from a bad season immediately to rise back up the standings. I'm looking at you, Montreal.

Detroit's recovery begins now that they have secured their own 2013 first round draft pick. Here's hoping it can be used to draft someone with offensive firepower, or perhaps that top pairing defenseman we pine for. Really, one could argue the recovery began symbolically by landing college free agent Danny DeKeyser. It's still exciting that the kid chose the Red Wings when 29 other teams were competing.

As a final thought to Deadline Day, I'd like to adress the most frustrating element of the last two weeks: the status of Valtteri Filppula. Many fans, myself included, have questioned whether Filppula will return to the Red Wings next season. You can sniff around the internet to see that there's been all sorts of quotes about how that's not the focus of Filppula or management right now, but reality is he is looking for a two million dollar per season pay increase. As I pondered this week on Twitter, what has Filppula done since his last contract to warrant a pay hike like that? He had a fantastic 2011-2012, scoring over sixty points for the first time. Jubilation all around Motown. This season, Filppula has looked well defensively, but his offense is paltry, netting six goals and thirteen points in 29 games. As a reference point, six Red Wings have more goals than the Finnish playmaker, including now-top line superstar Justin Abdelkader (maybe a little sarcasm there). It hasn't been a good year for Filppula to show he's worth the 5 million a year, long term deal he's looking for. What should Ken Holland do?

Some suggested we trade Filppula today to get maximum value for him before he walks for nothing. In theory, that's an excellent idea. Today proved to be a bizarre deadline where great players were sent to strange places for curiously diluted packages. All due respect for the players traded for the Gaboriks and Pominvilles, I'm still scratching my scalp. In the end, Holland didn't pull the trigger and that can give us some insight into the Filppula situation. Perhaps he wasn't moved because he's never going anywhere. There could be a plan to keep him. Or it's a gesture of hope that he will resign for a more reasonable amount of money. Or Ken Holland just couldn't get value for him. We'll never know because it makes no sense for Holland to let on that he shopped a guy we kind of want to re-sign.

As another deadline day passes and all the major sports networks pack up their big sets and the poor bastards who had to spend 14 hours covering this dull affair get some rest from their mobile phones, take solace in the fact that the Detroit Red Wings are no worse than they were yesterday. In fact, if you think about it, they're better than they were a week ago. And in two weeks when all of our players aren't beaten up with injures, they'll be better than they are now.

I can live with that.

Who Will Fit on the Detroit Red Wings' Fourth Line?

Now that the National Hockey League is back, it's time to get down to business here at the Wizard of Osgood. The Detroit Red Wings are back to training, and with training camp comes a litany of questions that should be answered before the puck drops. What will the line combinations be? What will the defensive pairings be? Are the players ready? Who is injured? Some of these questions are tackled in Episode 31 of Winging it in Motown Radio, featuring yours truly making some wildly silly proposals about sending Johan Franzen out of town while he still has value. It might have been the sugar from the hot chocolate talking, but I think there's a valid point to offloading Franzen somewhere in exchange for a solid top tier defenseman, especially considering the number of forwards Detroit currently has signed. With that said, I fully acknowledge that it isn't a good idea to just deal Franzen for the sake of getting rid of that albatross of a contract. Especially not knowing how good Damien Brunner is going to be lining up with Datsyuk and Zetterberg. Perhaps this is a preview of what is to come:

 


I doubt many NHL teams will exhibit defense as poorly as EHC Biel does in this game, but that kind of chemistry is leaving a certain "puck patriarch" analyst intrigued.

The question on my mind last night and today is the situation with the Detroit Red Wings' fourth line. As it stands now, it appears that the top three lines are going to look like this:

Brunner/Datsyuk/Zetterberg

Franzen/Filppula/Samuelsson

Bertuzzi/Helm/Cleary

Those three lines are as good as any iteration of the same nine or ten forwards Detroit has fielded since reaching the Stanley Cup Finals in 2008 and 2009. Brunner is obviously a question mark as no one has ever seen him compete in an NHL environment before. Brunner isn't big but he's a skilled forward who was among the elite talents in European hockey leagues. It's another one of those Ville Leino/Fabian Brunnstrom experiments that could go either way. Obviously, the previous two didn't work out in Detroit, but the offense survived and chugged along with the usual top 10 in goals scored. The Bertuzzi/Helm/Cleary combination is as strong as any third line the NHL and Helm is still improving as a third line checking center. Bertuzzi has proven time and time again that despite previous transgressions, he still has what it takes to play and he still has great hands. Dan Cleary had a great season in 2010-11 with 26 goals, but played injured the next year and barely finished with 33 points before being invisible in the playoffs against Nashville. He will want to bounce back with a solid effort in the shortened season, knowing he is on the final year of a 2.8 million dollar contract that any number of young Red Wings prospects could be deserving of in the next couple of seasons.

So that brings us to the fourth line. And boy, what a log-jam of talented players there are. In no particular order you have Justin Abdelkader, Patrick Eaves, Drew Miller, Cory Emmerton, Jan Mursak, Jordan Tootoo, Gustav Nyquist, Tomas Tatar, and possibly Mike Knuble. That's nine guys competing for three positions. I'll make the obvious known now to get it out of the way: Justin Abdelkader will be the fourth line center, with Jordan Tootoo pissing everyone in the world off at right wing. That leaves seven able-bodied forwards competing for one job. Drew Miller seems like the easy choice at left wing, but where do Jan Mursak and Cory Emmerton go if not to Detroit? Nyquist can go back to Grand Rapids on his entry level contract, as can Tomas Tatar, but would Mike Knuble agree to a two-way deal at 40, knowing his career could either be over in the NHL? And what about Patrick Eaves, a player who is beloved by the Red Wings faithful and continues to fight through a bad concussion? There's way too many forwards clogging up the bottom six in Detroit, and the fact is that not everybody is going to be around come January 19th in St. Louis.

The painful reality of this situation is that several players are going to lose their jobs. The time is going to come for the Nyquists, the Tatars, the Ferraros, the Sheahans, the Jurcos, and later the Frks of the Red Wings system. They may have to accept that their time in Grand Rapids is not over. There is already some speculation that Tatar is growing restless in Grand Rapids and Gustav Nyquist is absolutely NHL ready, but the Brunner experiment and the signing of Samuelsson all but squashed the roster slots "Goose" should be filling. When Nyquist and Tatar return to Grand Rapids, that leaves Emmerton, Mursak, Miller, Eaves, and Knuble to compete for the final slot. As much as I've love to see number 17 back on the ice this season, Eaves was just cleared for contact and the season is five days away. Mike Knuble could be the Dallas Drake of 2013, so I am unsure if ruling out his potential veteran presence is wise. Miller played 80 games last season and potted 14 goals and 25 points. Those numbers are good enough to sell him as the top choice for the left wing position. That leaves Jan Mursak and Cory Emmerton as the odd men out.

So what happens to them?

The simple solution is to send both of them back to Grand Rapids, which must be frustrating and disappointing to both players. Emmerton played 71 games with Detroit last season, and Mursak 25 games. They both have NHL experience, but neither demonstrated an offensive flair during their time with the team. Both are 24 years old and are too old to be considered "prospects" if there are young players like Thomas Jurco and Marty Frk at 20 and 19. Should they accept the demotion? It may just be time for both to consider other teams that could use their skills. Even if some of the regulars get injured in the regular season (hopefully not), is it satisfying enough to take the scraps from the table? Probably not.

In conclusion, I believe things will play out as follows. Knuble will be offered a two way deal and he will either retire or enjoy the role as depth replacement should a serious injury occur. Patrick Eaves...will most likely miss another NHL season. Sucks to even type that but given the amount of forwards already fighting for a job, there's no reason to rush his return. The kids, Nyquist and Tatar, will remain in Grand Rapids for the season, unless Nyquist somehow proves to Babcock and company that he's better than Drew Miller's best. Drew Miller will be the fourth line left wing, where he will play his ass off for another contract. This leaves Jan Mursak and/or Cory Emmerton en route to a demotion, healthy scratch, or another city.

With Valtteri Filppula, Damien Brunner, Drew Miller, and Dan Cleary all in contract seasons, there's no doubt that there is a fire underneath (and maybe inside?) all of them to compete hard in the shortened season to prove their worth. There are enough forward prospects in the system to replaces all of them over the course of five years. Filppula is going to be a major piece of the future in Detroit, with Brunner being a potential boom or bust. Drew Miller and Dan Cleary have this season to justify another contract. If not, Nyquist and Tatar will get their chances next season on the team. Provided they aren't packaged in some zany deal to get a new number one defensemen.

One final post-edit comment: if you don't already know about Winging it in Motown or the radio show, please go look at their stuff. I am the Padawan to their Red Wing mastery. Thanks to JJ, Jeff, Graham, and Tyler for having my dopey ass on the show again. I love doing it and can't wait to do it again some time.