Red Wings avoid focus in The Hockey News "Money Issue"

October 26, 11:47 PMDetroit Red Wings ExaminerMike Mouat

Previous Next

Comment Print Email RSS Subscribe

Subscribe

Get alerts when there is a new article from the Detroit Red Wings Examiner. Read Examiner.com's terms of use.

Email Address   Include other special offers from Examiner.com Terms of Use

The Hockey News October 26 Money Issue explores the salary cap

The Hockey News annual "Money Issue" featuring Jonathan Toews of the Chicago Blackhawks on the cover hits newsstands today, and the Detroit Red Wings are hardly mentioned.
That is a good thing because the teams, such as the Blackhawks, that are facing salary cap issues are mentioned prominently throughout the weekly magazine.
The magazine lists each team's roster and total salary figures in 2009-10, and the Red Wings are listed at $56,546,441, which is just $253,559 under the salary cap of $56.8-million. The Wings roster includes the full salary of Andreas Lilja ($1.25-million) and Johan Franzen ($3,954,545) whose salaries while on injured reserve do not count against the cap. So the Red Wings will have more money available to make roster moves if they so choose.
According to The Hockey News four teams (Boston, Chicago, Montreal, Washington) will have to manipulate their rosters thoughout the season to navigate around the cap as their rosters currently exceed the limit.
The Blackhawks received a great deal of attention in this issue because they are already facing issues with the cap this season and face greater challenges next season as they still have to sign Jonathan Toews, Patrick Kane and Duncan Keith to new, lucrative, contracts this summer in order to retain their services. Complicating matters for Chicago is they have already committed $42.5-million to 12 players for next season and are potentially facing a reduced cap figure further reducing the money they have available for their three stars. The magazine suggests they will have to move good young players from their roster, such as Kris Versteeg and Dustin Byfuglien in exchange for draft picks. Teams at the other end of the salary cap spectrum, such as Columbus, Dallas, Nashville, New York Islanders and Phoenix Coyotes will be in a position to improve their teams quickly this summer in the same manner as Toronto was able to acquire Phil Kessel from Boston, simply because other teams won't have enough money to go around.
The Red Wings created a salary cap conundrum for themselves last season when they chose to re-sign Chris Chelios to a one-year $750,000 deal and it cost them Kyle Quincey. In order to reduce their payroll under the cap last season the Red Wings needed to send a player to the minors, however that player (Quincey)  had to clear waivers first. The Los Angeles Kings wasted little time claiming Quincey and he went on to record 38 points while playing 20:58 a game. And the decision to re-sign Chelios could have cost them another young defenseman, Derek Meech or Brett Lebda, had Chelios not been injured for an extended period of time allowing the team to clear his salary from the cap calculation while he was on injured reserve. Otherwise the Red Wings would have been forced to expose Meech or Lebda through waivers to clear their salaries from the cap calculation.
This season the Red Wings made the right but difficult decision to let unrestricted free agents Marian Hossa and Mikael Samuelsson leave for more money elsewhere, and avoided managing the cap through injuries, or finding themselves in the binding trap the Blackhawks and others find themselves in this season and for years to come.
The decision to give up that much firepower might cost them a couple of victories over the course of the season but they are in no danger of missing the playoffs, and the cap flexibility will allow them to maintain their core players and remain competitive.
The Hockey News also compiled two lists of interest, and the Red Wings were not mentioned in either one, and once again that is a good thing. The first lists the best restricted free agents available in 2010, or the guys most likely to get a huge raise this year.  The second lists the players that received the largest raises, percentage wise, on their second contracts since the lockout. Dustin Penner of the Edmonton Oilers tops the second list (787% increase) and hasn't lived up to the raise, while players such as Alex Ovechkin (149%) and Sidney Crosby (135%) rank much further down the list despite their much greater achievements. The point of the list is that too many of these players have been overpaid or are about to be overpaid. Two lists any team should try to avoid as inclusion on either one indicates you have contributed to the escalating salaries in the past that are causing salary cap issues, or that you are about to find yourself in salary cap trouble in the near future as you attempt to keep your team intact.

Sometimes it's good not to be mentioned in The Hockey News.

Other Articles you may enjoy:
On this date in Red Wings and NHL history, October 27
The Detroit Red Wings weekly report, October 26