Offseason in the Atlantic

Now that all the major off season moves have been accounted for, lets make an early prediction at how the Red Wings and each of it's division rivals will fare.

Revisiting the Wings D

Previous posts have discussed the implications of the free agency strike out, mainly that someone on the Wings will need to step up and perform in the 2nd pairing. One player who may have the tools to fill this role is Brendan Smith.

dCorsi the Wing's Forwards and Weiss

While doing the research for the Dmen, I was curious and decided to look at the forwards we have coming back next season.

New Way to Look at Red Wing Defenders

          In the first entry I looked at how the Red Wing defenders faired relative to an average 1st, 2nd, or 3rd pairing defender. The trouble with this approach is although we can directly compare CF%, there is the inevitable difficulty of assigning weight to a players zone start percentage, the competition they play against, as well as the teammates they play with. While we can eyeball the comparison we are allowing more biases to cloud our judgment. 

         Luckily while wandering the internet, I came across dCorsi.

Red Wings Make Big Free Agent Splash

So after striking out on the big name free agents, the Red Wings, despite having a backlog of young offensive talent, gave Daniel Cleary 1.5 million dollars. This deal, as reported by Helene St. James, was awarded based on his loyalty in resigning with the Wings last year rather than bolting for Philly. I have complete faith in this explanation as his numbers from last season give no reason for any team to sign Cleary to a new deal. In an injury shortened season he managed only 8 points in 52 games to go along with his CF% of 47.3. Luckily for him, Stephen Weiss' bust status mostly overshadowed Cleary's struggles. The lone ray of hope regarding this signing, is the potential for Cleary to return to the form shown during his lockout shortened season. While his 15 points in 48 games leaves us mostly wanting more, he did manage to drive possession with a CF of 53.5%. To increase optimism, his 15 points came despite an on-ice shooting percentage of only 4.7%, so he should be due for a slight uptick in the points department if that returns to average levels. Obviously I am grasping at straws here, but what else can you do when your team signs a 35 year old with bad knees and limited offensive ability for 1.5 million instead of promoting a young potential star.

Defense in the Big D

Lately, all talk regarding the Red Wings has centered on the defense and Ken Holland’s inability to lure a top-4 dman to the Motor City.