Quote:
Originally Posted by Honolulu_Blue
Even if Lidstrom does retire after the 09-10 season, the Wings will still be in a jam next season.
According the NHLnumbers.com, for 09-10 the Wings already have 14 players under contract and are at $41.2 million. Even if you get Hossa and Zetterberg to take a "home town discont" and sign at $7.5 million per season each, that brings the Wings to $56 million with only 16 players under contract. Even in the unlikely even the cap goes up by $5 million next year, I can't see how the Wings keep Franzen. Even keeping two of the three could make things tight.
There aren't too many places where the Wings can save money. They could try to move Lilja ($1.2M) and replace him with someone who makes a little less. They could do the same with Draper ($1.5M). Other than that you have Maltby making $800K and then younger guys making less than that. The only other options would be moving Cleary ($2.8M) or Fillpula ($3M), but I don't see that happening.
If Lidstrom retires, which I think he will, the Wings will need to look for another defensemen to do their best to take over for him. Those are incredibly big skates to fill. We had a glimpse of the Lidstromless Wings last year when he was out with the knee injury for a few weeks. It wasn't pretty. At all. The Wings looked completely out of sync and were a mess in their own end. I fear the post-Lidstrom era.
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Not knowing who is a FA in 2010, I don't think they are getting anyone to replace Lidstrom. He's irreplaceable. The best they can hope for is Rafalski, Kronwall and Stuart all step up, as well as one ofMeech and Erricsson being able to fill a 2nd pairing role.
I didn't realize Draper was making that little (comparatively to other players), but I guess he's also been taking a discount to stick around. Other 3rd line centers, the Matt Cullens of the world, are getting $3M.