At this time last year, the biggest question facing the Detroit Red Wings was whether or not captain Nicklas Lidstrom would retire. One year later, and this question pops up yet again.
Lidstrom had a stellar year this season as he finished second in defense scoring, was the most consistent defenseman on a team that struggled with defensive inconsistencies all season, and was nominated for the Norris Trophy as the league’s best defenseman for the 11th time in his career. Should he win, he would tie Doug Harvey for second most all time with 7.
It’s general consensus in Detroit that since Lidstrom can clearly still play at a high level, the main deciding factors would be the team’s competitiveness and his family. Lidstrom has gone on record as saying he believes this team is still a contender, which means his decision will most likely come down to whether or not he still has the hunger to play another season.
He has to be hungry enough to spend another season not seeing his family as much as he would like. Coach Mike Babcock believes he will come back, and teammate Mike Modano said that if he was in Lidstrom’s position, he’d be coming back for the next couple years.
Alas, the hockey world will probably not know his decision until the end of june, so we will just have to hold our collective breath. Aside from just affecting the look of Detroit’s defensive core and overall team makeup (no pressure right), Lidstrom’s decision will also heavily affect the Red Wings salary cap situation.
Lidstrom’s cap hit this past season was $6.2 million, and many imagine his new contract would be about the same (unless he went the Steve Yzerman route and decided to take a pay cut).
A crafty GM like Ken Holland can do a lot of things with upwards of $6 million dollars in cap space, so he will be making plans for every possible situation before the free agency begins.
As far as Lidstrom is concerned, if he comes back, the defense won’t need any major changes, if he doesn’t, the Wings will most likely use that money to sign a good free agent. If Lidstrom doesn’t retire, the top four on defense is set in stone for Detroit. Lidstrom, Rafalski, Kronwall, and Stuart are as good as, if not better than any top four in the league today.
That would leave the third pairing as the only holes to be filled, and they may already be filled. As was reported earlier on this site, the club offered Jonathan Ericsson a new multi-year deal at $2 million a year, but Ericsson has turned it down.
The Wings like what they have seen of Ericsson, but he if he is looking for too much money they may look elsewhere.
That brings us to Ruslan Salei. Salei was brought in last year as a hard nosed veteran to stabilize the back end. He did that effectively, especially in the playoffs, but the Wings may not offer him a new contract, in lieu of the younger Jakub Kindl.
Kindl was the team’s 7th defenseman this season, and played in 48 games mostly due to the injuries of his teammates. Kindl got much better the more he played, and he has proved himself more than capable of handling NHL duties.
Despite the fact that the age issue with this team is always blown out of proportion, the Wings will want youth rounding out their defensive core, in hopes that when guys like Lidstrom and Rafalski do retire, they will be able to take up their mantle.
There’s also the consideration of the Wings’ top prospect, defenseman Brendan Smith. Smith spent last season in Grand Rapids, and had a very successful rookie campaign in the AHL. He did suffer an injury that caused him to miss some time, but he finished with 12 goals and 20 assists for 32 points in 63 games played.
He was also named to the Western Conference All-Star Team. The Wings may want to give him one more year in Grand Rapids, just so he can play a full season without injury, but he will be given every chance to make the Wings’ roster in training camp. He projects to be a top pairing defenseman who can quarterback a powerplay.
So assuming Lidstrom does not retire, I imagine the Wings’ defense for next season will look like this:
Lidstrom-Rafalski
Kronwall-Stuart
Ericsson-Kindl
Smith (as the 7th defenseman)
Assuming Lidstrom does retire, the changes in that lineup would depend on what free agent they sign.
Kronwall may jump up to the top pairing permanently, the unknown free agent could play anywhere in the top two pairings, and Raflaski and Stuart could end up playing together, or one could pair up with the free agent, and the other get paired with Kronwall depending on where he plays.
There’s also the possibility that Babcock will want Rafalski or Kronwall to play with either Ericsson or Kindl to have veteran presence in all of the pairings.
Obviously Lidstrom retiring changes everything, and opens the floodgates as far as these sorts of scenarios are concerned. Having Lidstrom on the team is what really distinguishes Detroit’s defense, and should he retire, it would take a collective effort to pick up the mountain of hall of fame slack left behind.
The Red Wings’ defense would still be solid if Nick left, but it would be infinitely better if he decides to lace ‘em up for one more year. If I had to choose between Nick Lidstrom resigning at 41 years old, or going after free agents like Christian Ehrhoff, Zach Bogosian, Shea Weber, or the myriad of other free agent defenseman this year, I’d take Lidstrom all day every day.
This man has some hockey left in him, and dammit I want to watch him play.
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RAFALSKI RETIRED. If lidstrom retires as well it will most likely be kronwall +1 unknown atm on the first D with stuart and another +1 on second pair. there offensive abilitys seemed too streaky so i hope franzen gets up and going next year and gets off the streaky random games with 5 goals. and hopefully valterri can start shooting the puck. i’m only slightly worried. but with the cap space from rafalski retiring is lidstrom also retires we lose a big chunk of our Offenseive defensemen. Well u know besides kronwall. But with all that cap space they could pull in some GOOD players they might not be a lidstrom or a rafalski but im sure they can get the job done. kenny hasnt failed the wings and i dont think he intends to now.