Without Rafalski and Lidstrom, the Wings blueline is looking a might peckish these days, which has Wings fans clamoring for Holland to sign Suter, Parise, and anybody else he can squeeze under the cap. Now, I get it—if the Wings don’t sign Parise and/or Suter this offseason they don’t have a prayer of competing for a cup, but if they do then their chances instantly skyrocket.
But this is a dangerous mindset, one of desperation, and one that has blown up spectacularly in teams’ faces when they decide to go on a spending spree in free agency. Take a look at Buffalo this past year. Though I don’t anticipate the Wings signing Paul Gaustad to a Leino-esque deal, the point is that there isn’t anybody worth investing in long term outside of Parise and Suter. Even so, Suter and Parise’s best years are either behind or close to behind them; signing them to long term deals could prove detrimental to the long term health of the Wings franchise, particularly when you consider that Zetterberg, Franzen, and Kronwall are already locked up long term.
As much as I’d love to see them go nuts and get Parise, Suter, Semin, and the ghost of Howie Morenz, it might just be the smart thing to pick up a few undervalued players on the cheap and pray like hell their draft picks pan out instead.
Holland knows that in the post-lockout cap era, you build from the draft. With Datsyuk and Zetterberg out of their prime and no one stepping up to replace them, Holland has accelerated the Wings traditionally slow development of prospects, signing 2011 draft picks Ryan Sproul and Xavier Ouellet to entry level contracts in addition to 2010 draft picks Riley Sheahan and Teemu Pulkkinen. It wouldn’t surprise me if Tomas Jurco was signed to an ELC soon as well. For the long term health of the franchise, some combination of these players has to be good, and a couple of them need to be elite.
Though Parise and Suter are terrific players, you’re not likely to get many more elite years out of them. Could they bring another cup to Detroit? Maybe, but the risk is too high and the window to short.
Now, I’ve already made an alternate suggestion: rather than sign Parise or Suter, trade Filppula—whose stock is artificially high right now—for whatever bit of youth you can get. Whatever the Wings get in return combined with their current pool of prospects, I’d say their future is much brighter than were they to hang another couple long-term, big-money deals around their neck. If Jurco, or Pulkkinen, or Nyquist, or Smith ends up being elite, I’d like to know the Wings will have the necessary cap space to build around them.
Yeah, they’re just prospects, and the odds that one of them isn’t the next Datsyuk or Zetterberg are greater than the odds that one of them is. Hell, they could all be duds. What would compound the shitiness of this situation, however, would be carrying the burden of two more immoveable long-term deals.
Considering that players of Parise and Suter’s caliber typically never hit free agency so close to (or in) their prime, and that when they do teams have to overpay to acquire them, it makes building through the draft all the more important. By not signing Parise, Suter, and Morenz, the Wings may suck this year. They may even suck the next. But maybe it’s just their time to suck; the cap-era NHL team is certainly prone to cycles of boom and bust, with teams winning windows shorter than ever. In my mind, not playing it smart will only make the bust long and protracted, turning what would be a recession into a depression.
Just Another Wings Blog 