Wings re-sign Zetterberg
posted by matt saler @ 9/07/2005 05:54:00 PM ::
2 comments
:: 
Ken Holland has rebounded from the loss of Pavel Datsyuk by locking up young forward Henrik Zetterberg, the Wings' second biggest off-season signing priority, today according to TSN.
Zetterberg, who signed a four-year, $10.6 million deal, will give up one year of unrestricted free agency. That's an important point for the Wings, who were able to get a satisfactorily long-term deal out of this while giving Hank the freedom to decide his career down the road. Henrik is just 25 and in the prime of his career, which makes it even better.
The Wings now have 10 forwards, 7 defensemen and 2 goalies with $5.5 million left under the cap. Holland isn't completely ruling out the return of Pavel Datsyuk (apparently, there is still some cloudiness over the out-clause issue) but he will operate under the assumption that he is not coming back this year, at least. It looks like Holland would like to get three more forwards, one of whom may or may not be Datsyuk. A side note: TSN says that Moscow Dynamo matched Avangard Omsk's offer, bringing Pavel back to Moscow to play with his old team. So that clears up my confusion about Pavel's apparent pump-faking everyone in the media out by practicing with Dynamo but signing with Avangard. I guess he was sort of an RFA with Moscow as well as with the Wings.
Hank will (according to TSN) earn $2.65 million this season, which isn't bad for a guy who led the SEL in scoring last season with 50 points in 50 games (19G, 31A). I'm glad Holland was able to bring him back and I'm even more glad Zata didn't make it any tougher. Good job, Kenny, and welcome back, Hank.
UPDATE (8. Sep): The always entertaining Jes Golbez has a breakdown of Hank's numbers here.
And for those of you who still have hope that Pavel will be back this season, here's another damper from the Detroit News:
Datsyuk can play in Europe until Oct. 5, the start of the NHL season. Any player who stays in Europe beyond that date must clear waivers to return to the NHL, and that wouldn't happen.No kidding! That's less than a month away now. So much for a December 1st deadline. Ugh.
2 Comments:
$2.65M is a reasonable salary for Hank. I bet the negotiations got a bit of traction when Pavs left - Kenny probably called Henrik the future of the team / next captain or something. Though I was worried Henrik would try and break the bank and pressure the Wings to pay him $4M with the available cap space with Pavs gone. From making somewhere around 800K, Hank certainly got a hefty raise. It's great news he's staying on the team! But I still have the wind knocked out of me from Pavs leaving...the Datsyuk-Turco goal picture has been on my wallpaper for a while now. I'm gonna start looking for a new wallpaper pretty soon.
I have a question that is a little off subject, after yzerman finally retires(in about 50 years, jk) who do you think the Wings will name captain? I was thinking Lidstrom or Draper but I don't know that much about hockey......
Post a Comment
Bookmark this post
Search this site
<< Home