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VA • United States • 22 Years Old • Male
With Nicklas Lidstrom off to a retirement home and the Red Wings looking to "rebuild", this off-season could be a big one for Red Wings fans. The Red Wings have a good core group of players and have a lot of cap room to sign some intriguing free agents. Here is what Ken Holland should do, in my opinion:

-Re-sign Justin Abdelkader: three years, $5.4 million ($1.8 mil AAV)
-Re-sign Kyle Quincey: three years, $9.75 million ($3.25 mil AAV)
-Re-sign Tomas Holmstrom: one year, $2 million
-Sign Alexander Semin: two years, $12.5 million ($6.25 mil AAV)
-Sign Damien Brunner one year, $900,000
-Sign Ryan Suter: six years, $45 million ($7.5 mil AAV)
-Sign Al Montoya two years, $2.4 milion ($1.2 mil AAV)
-Trade or send down Cory Emmerton
-Send down Jan Mursak
-Send down Joey MacDonald

This gives the Red Wings about $3 million in cap space to work with during the season. Here's how the lineup would project:

Johan Franzen-Pavel Datsyuk-Alexander Semin
Valterri Filppula-Henrik Zetterberg-Damien Brunner
Gustav Nyquist-Darren Helm-Todd Bertuzzi
Danny Cleary-Justin Abdelkader-Patrick Eaves
Scratches: Drew Miller, Tomas Holmstrom

Ryan Suter-Ian White
Niklas Kronwall-Brendan Smith
Jonathan Ericsson-Kyle Quincey
Scratch: Jakub Kindl

Jimmy Howard
Al Montoya

If Holmstrom retires, Mursak would be called back up. I believe Holmstrom still has value on the power play and could play "effectively" for another season.
Filed Under:   Detroit   Red Wings   Semin   Suter  
July 1, 2012 10:59 AM ET | Delete
Couldn't agree more with what you think Holland should do here. Hopefully he can pull it off.
July 1, 2012 4:30 PM ET | Delete
try Suter 12yrs-13yrs at 80-100 million.... that is the going rate as of today.
July 8, 2012 2:41 PM ET | Delete
Well Suter is off the board, but I like the Gustavsson and Tootoo signings. Bringing in Tootoo probably means the end of Holmstrom's tenure in Detroit. Samuelsson and Brunner should help out the power play. I am intrigued to see how the roster shapes up with moves to be made still.
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