Much Calmer Now: Viva la Tootoo

Ok, knee-jerk reactions are over and all those cool elitists in the national press have complained about fans being fans. Let's get down to objectivity for a second.

Mikael Samuelsson on the Red Wings is likely good for 20 goals. He's got a decent shot at 30. He's a right-shooting forward with grit and who plays defensively sound as a winger. He's good on the power play and has a bit of a sniper's touch that surprises goalies (insert joke here about how it surprises them when it's on net). Sammy is also the kind of guy who throws punches in scrums and tells opposing goalies and defenders how little he thinks of them. Sammy is mean, he's a decent skater, and he's a better middle-six winger than a lot of Detroit's other middle-sixers.

On the other end, Jordin Tootoo is even meaner and that's his job. Tootoo would be the true return of a Kirk Maltby type. Even better is that watching him succeed with Detroit will absolutely infuriate Nashville fans. Like I said in the post about him, 30 points from a guy slotted to play no higher than the third line is very good, and that's coming from a guy who did that with Nashville's offense. Sure, he takes bad penalties... that's kind of what bottom-six forwards do. He also skates like a demon every single second he's on the ice.

The best part about why we should be giving Holland the benefit of the doubt (screw that... let's call it the best reason to be cautiously optimistic) is that Ken Holland has 16 forwards on the Wings if you count Abdelkader. That is too many. He's not just going to throw a couple guys on waivers and call it a day. I do believe that Kenny's got plenty more moves coming before we get to training camp.

Keep holding onto your butts. It's still only July 1st.