Hockey Night in Canada / Trade Deadline

So here it is. Jude Oliver's first Hockey Night in Canada marathon session. As you can see baby boy is all
geeked out in Red Wings attire to match his Papa. The Winged Wheel provided a fantastic 4-1 victory over The high scoring Ottawa Senators which made our family very happy. Jimmy Howard made 29 saves, which is becoming just another day in the office for him. Maltby, Datsyuk, Cleary & Franzen scored, Dats with the game winner (a beautiful deflection pass from Lidstrom on the power play) and Mule scored the empty netter. Mule registered 7 shots on goal and brought back much of the puck possession game we have been missing, frustrating The Sens. The balance of our 4 forward lines and equal time on the ice of our defense (Raffy was on for 25min) was the best we have seen yet, i.e. neither Datsyuk and Zetterberg were double shifting, and all forward lines were skating well.

This was a good last game before the Olympic break. The Olympic hockey games start tomorrow afternoon btw. Sadly, The Flames won the late game vs. The Ducks and our Wings are still 1 pt out of the playoffs, tied with Dallas. This is going to be an amazing 7 week finish after The Olympics. I truly expect things to turn around and the San Jose and Ottawa games support this belief. Jimmy is stellar in net right now. The defense has played two high flying offenses very tight. The Mule is once again charging up our offense. Hopefully, Holmer is not going back to the IR after aggravating his knee injury again. The Mule has taken Holmer's place on Team Sweden which just made Team Sweden a little more dynamic but also just made the other nations' goalies so relieved to not have Holmer's butt in their faces for the next two weeks.

TRADE DEADLINE
There were many allusions to a shake up in Detroit on HNIC. I believe hockey insiders are aware of some big changes coming. So far no major surprises. Andreas Lilja was reinstated to the lineup with his stay at home defense and $1.9 mil cap hit. This means The Wings were $1.2 over the cap. Brad May was placed on waivers and Ville Leino was traded to Philly last week for prospects. They are half way to cap safety. Either another waiver move or trade will clear the last half a mil from the books to make way for Lilja. We could speculate for the next two weeks because there are no deals during the Olympics. Could you imagine Filppula lining up at Center Ice and Sid Crosby saying "Hey man, I heard you just got traded to Florida." Vanessa and I compiled a list of players we feel could be moved.

First, if it's another waiver the obvious candidate would be Derek Meech. In and out of the lineup for 4 years now, he has never solidified a top 6 Defense men position and is likely on the way back to Grand Rapids if one of the other 29 teams does not claim him. For trades fans often single out the current weak links on the team (Lebda & Meech have to be the two obvious examples.) If they aren't having stellar seasons why would anybody else want those players? Not to mention you are trading for cap space and these are not higher salary players. The first obvious target for trade deadline is Unrestricted Free Agents (UFA.) You lose them for nothing most likely at the end of year, which for The Wings is great because they lose $18 in contracts under the cap this summer and can rebuild a little. In the meantime though you might be able to shed salary and score some playoff gold when Ken Holland works his magic.

UFAs: Holmstrom, Williams, Bertuzzi, Maltby, Lidstrom, Lilja & Lebda.

Lidstrom will retire as Captain of The Wings either next season or the one after. I would think he would come down from his $7.5 million per season to help the team get better and free up more money for Free Agents next year. Holmstrom is a likely resign, and if healthy is worth his $2.25 mi per season. He hasn't been healthy for large chunks of the last two years though. He would definitely not fall into trade talks in his current injury situation. The Detroit News printed a story on Saturday suggesting that The Ottawa game might by Maltby's last as a Wing. Ironic that he scored his 4th goal of the season that night. The mystery right now is how Maltby is going to handle an ailing shoulder. He needs shoulder surgery, and The Wings could decide to place Maltby on IR. They are clearly showing Malts the respect of making that decision on his own since he has been part of The Red Machine for over 15 years now. If that occurs, his $750,000 salary puts The Wings below the cap. This would seemingly make a trade unnecessary, and given the cap restrictions nobody expects The Wings to be major players. Malts really fits into The Babcock style of play though, and I think it would hurt our forward depth.

I would not rule out the possibility of something happening though because of that list above you still have Williams, Bert & Lebda, currently healthy, with playoff experience, and UFA's. Trades address your biggest needs, and right now ours is inability to score, followed closely by inability to clear the crease. Lilja will check everybody in sight and cross check the next skater that sets up a post in front of Howard. So how does getting rid of Williams and Bert help you score goals? Only if you get a $3mi per season 2nd line scorer in return. They each make $1.5. You could waive one of the odd man out defense men and get a $4 mil goal scorer. Of the teams that are clearly not getting ready for the playoffs you have guys like Rafi Torres (Blue Jackets), Owen Nolan (Wild), and Alex Tanguay (Lightning), who are all good playoff skaters. The teams involved would only be looking to ditch salary, then drop the new Red Wings players at the end of the year. Some prospects likely would need to be involved as well. Down each of these paths is a whole lot nothing to trade with. We have nothing we would part with that other teams can use, with one glaring exception. Chris Osgood.

Ozzie's regular season stats are terrible for the last two seasons, 2009 3.09 GAA, .887 Save Pct; 2010 2.94 GAA, .891 Save Pct. More to the point Jimmy Howard has been spectacular and if his play gets us into the playoffs there is no way Babcock benches him. Ozzie is a $1.5 million security blanket for us right now. His playoff stats are far more important though, 2.00 GAA and .930 Save Pct. in the last two Cup runs, he has been a tremendous clutch performer. Of the top teams preparing for playoff runs right now, I can list 4 Eastern Conference teams without a clear number 1 playoff seasoned goalie, Sens, Flyers (though a Turco trade is in the works), Lightning and Habs. All are running into inconsistent goal tending issues. I love Ozzie, and I think he can still regain his top form, though I doubt we will see him more than 3 times for the rest of this year. If he is basically going to be benched, and other teams are willing to offer up snipers for Ozzie, Holland will most certainly listen. I think it is an unlikely scenario but it's still out there. Ozzie has great playoff career numbers and is the only chip we really have. It is clear that the biggest question mark is the clutch goal scoring, which is why I think something may happen before March 3rd.