Who Detroit is losing
First off, the Red Wings had three free agents they could try to resign. Valtteri Filppula, Danny Cleary and Damien Brunner.
Filppula
For months there have been reports that Filppula wanted a minimum of $5 million a year. He eventually got that from Steve Yzerman and the Tampa Bay Lightening in a five year contract. I have to say, Yzerman may not be cut out to be a GM. This is not a good deal. Filppula is turning 30 next year and has scored more than 40 points once in his career. For some perspective, Ryan Kesler, James Neal, Bobby Ryan, and David Krejci all have cap hits in the $5 million a year range and are all vastly superior players.
Still, this means Detroit is losing around 37 points a year, and a player strong defensively and in the faceoff dot.
Brunner
It looks like Brunner is likely heading out after the other signings by Detroit. The 27-year-old showed great offensive skill, if sometimes inconsistently, in his "rookie" season last year. If you add his playoff numbers to the lockout-shortened season totals Brunner had about 0.6 points a game. If he can sustain that pace going forward, that's about 50 points a season. That could be a big blow to Detroit's offense and depth. Of course, that is a small sample size, and no guarantee that he'll deliver that next season. On top of that, he's a bit one-dimensional. He can't take faceoffs or play on the penalty kill. And he was prone to carelessness with the puck at times. Still, it's too bad Detroit could not figure out a way to retain him.
Cleary
As I've said before, Cleary is a frustrating player. He's had some great years with Detroit and has been the type of guy to chip in 10 goals a year. But my issue recently has been that he hasn't been paid like a guy chipping in 10 goals a year. The 34-year-old looks like he is slowing down and is likely going to be battling some type of injury on and off for the rest of his career. On top of that, the Red Wings have a lot of prospects coming up through the system and every second Cleary plays is a second a young forward is not getting an opportunity. And finally, the Red Wings already have players filling a similar role under contract (Todd Bertuzzi and Mikael Samuelsson). My best guess is the Wings will lose at most 30 points a year from Cleary if he is not resigned.
All-in-all, that's anywhere from 110 to 120 points of offense leaving Detroit. So let's look at who is coming in to replace that.
Daniel Alfredsson
Well, I really didn't see that one coming. I'm not sure anyone expected Alfredsson to leave the Ottawa Senators after 17 seasons. And yet he'll be pulling on a Red Wings jersey next season and Ottawa will now be his divisional rival. Alfredsson is the classic old dude who is a shadow of himself type of player Detroit loves to lure away from other teams. This reminded me a lot of the Mike Modano signing a few years back, but it might work out a little bit better.
It's hard to say what the 40-year-old has left in the tank. Playing on an injury-riddled, undermanned Senators team last year, Alfredsson put up just 26 points. Two years ago he scored 27 goals and 59 points. Despite the dip in his offensive numbers last year, Alfredsson remained a strong puck possession player with a corsi of just over 12, which would have been good for 5th among Red Wings forwards last year, just behind Filppula.
Taking a pessimistic view that Alfredsson's lower points per game rate is here to stay, and considering his age, the Red Wings can probably expect about 70 games and 40 points from the right winger next season. I consider this a solid move by the Red Wings. $2 million of Alfredsson's salary is contingent on performance bonuses, meaning that money will not count against the cap until next year if the goals are achieved. I also like that this is a one year deal, so the Wings are not locked into losing a roster space for a prospect who is ready to join the team.
Stephen Weiss
This was definitely Detroit's biggest move of the day. Weiss pretty much got the money Filppula wanted. His five-year contract actually pays half-a-million less. And that surprised me, because unlike Fil who has scored more than 40 points just once, Weiss has only once failed to break 40 points in the past seven seasons (and that was due to injury). In fact, remove last year's injury-shortened season and Weiss averaged almost 53 points a year for six seasons. Of course, Weiss recently turned 30, so his numbers are likely to begin trending lower, but he will be moving to a much better team than the Florida Panthers. At least for next season I think it's safe to expect 50 points from the center and likely 53% in the faceoff dot.
So Alfredsson and Weiss will hopefully contribute about 90 points next year, meaning Detroit still needs to add around 20-30 points just to make up for the departing players. Where will that offense come from? Two places: Veterans getting healthy and young players scoring more.
Injured reserve
Last season Detroit had one of the highest number of man-games lost to injury in the league. A big part of that was the near total lack of games played by Bertuzzi, Samuelsson and Helm. If those players returned to the line up, they would bring roughly 40, 30 and 25 points a piece with them. That would more than close the gap left by the departing forwards. But they are not all likely to remain on the team. That is because Detroit's prospects are finally forcing themselves into roster spots.
Young players scoring more
Did you blink? If you did, you probably missed Detroit's rebuild. The Red Wings are stocked with both defensive and forward prospects, as well as one of the best goalies in the AHL. And those players are just starting to force themselves onto the Red Wings roster. Tomas Tatar was excellent in his call up to the Red Wings and when he was sent back down he went on to win the MVP of the AHL playoffs. Gustav Nyquist and Joakim Andersson have also earned places on the team. Those two are without contracts so far, which means the Wings will soon be up to 16 forwards signed for 2013-14, and that's two too many.
My best guess/hope is that Detroit tries to trade at least two of the following: Samuelsson, Jordin Tootoo, or Cory Emmerton. Losing any of those players would have almost no impact on the team. And they take up $5.4 million in cap space. Those players or cap space could be used to add a final defenseman and/or upgrade other positions.
Considering some of the contracts handed out today, the Red Wings did pretty well. They did not hurt themselves with overly long or big contracts. They gave themselves space to allow their young players to continue taking on bigger responsibilities. And remained flexible enough for the additional moves to come.
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