And Then There Were 23

Man oh man, I am excited about this season.

Babcock is starting Ericsson with Lidstrom on the first pairing for the first game.

Lidstrom-Ericsson
Rafalski-Stuart
Kronwall-Salei

http://www.mlive.com/redwings/index.ssf/2010/10/red_wings_pair_jonathan_ericss.html

we need malts to get to that smaelevel, I think he has been a great impact but here soon we needed to start changing. The way the lines look this year I believe it was the best time to start this process…. I do also hope that he gets to grand rapids though, just in case im wrong.

I am pretty positive that we can’t bring up Meech this year (Malts is a different case, slightly) because of the NHL’s re-entry waiver rule, otherwise known as the “Let’s duke the Red Wings as much as possible” rule.

The short of it: to come back to the team, either would have to pass through waivers again before they could join the Red Wings’ roster. These waivers are actually even worse, since if a team picks the player up, we would still have to count half of his NHL salary against our cap for the rest of the year.

So say the Red Wings find themselves with two injured defensemen in February, and want to bring up Meech. He would have to pass through every single team in the league first. Now you tell me: what is the likelihood that in February there won’t be a single NHL team who would take a young, back-end blueliner who projects as a solid NHLer at a cap hit of half of the minimum NHL salary? Zero. If we try to bring up Meech, all that will happen is the Red Wings will instantly lose $250K x [% of season remaining] of cap space, AND lose Meech for good.

With Malts, it’s a bit different, because if we are in a position where we need Malts, there is very little likelihood that any other team will want to pick him up. The same rules (half the cap hit covered by the Wings) apply, but Maltby has meaning to Detroit that he doesn’t have in another city. If he gets picked up by waivers, he would probably just retire rather than move his family. From other teams’ perspectives, grabbing someone else’s 40-year-old vet for a playoff run makes little sense. The only other use for him would be as an on-ice teacher, but every team had a shot at him already for that role, and turned it down. Suffice to say, it is highly likely that Malts could pass through re-entry waivers.

I would give you a purpose to such a stupid rule, but I have wracked my brain and cannot find one. I have a blog post to that end which I’ve been meaning to publish but haven’t yet. Suffice to say, it’s a rule only Gary Bettman could have come up with.

The dumbest rule in the entire world of sports is the NHL’s “intent to suck blow” rule. The second-dumbest rule in the entire world of sports is the NHL’s re-entry waiver rule. In this case, it will prevent Derek Meech from playing for an NHL team this year, unless Derek is traded to another team (that team could then pass him through regular waivers if they want to send him down).

No one would be dumb enough to grab Maltby. Just like no one was dumb enough to try and trade for Stevie when he was on the block ten years ago. Maltby, Drapes, Holmstrom, Lidstrom, and Ozzy are Wing lifers (yes, I know three of them have played for other teams. You know what I mean) and will retire Wings. Two of them will even have jerseys hung from the rafters of the Joe (Palace???) while the other three should at least get some sort of recognition ceremony when they do retire. If he does get grabbed, I doubt he’d ever report to the team. He’d probably take a job with the player development teams and work with Chelli.

I said it last year when Lilja came back. I was wrong – look at the penalty kill #‘s before and after. I can’t count how many times I said to the TV – “c’mon Lilly – SKATE”, but I wouldn’t be surprised at all to see Lilja on the roster at some point this season, and in the playoffs.

He came back and the PK #‘s went into the 90’s…before, just not there, no matter who else was paired with Nick (TPH).

Just a random bold prediction from the Heartland.

Smitty

and it is 4 hours past the deadline. I still value the guy for PK and drawing penalties on the other team. Hope he stays ready in GR for when we need him, and you know injuries will occur.

And I hope we dont see Ericsson paired with Lidstrom too much – last year it seemed the majority of Nick’s minuses in his +/- stat came when Ericsson was on the ice. That was unscientific observation though, i’d really like to see the actual stat.