Sunday, July 02, 2006

Red Wings press conference tomorrow

According to Ansar Khan, the Wings have called a press conference for 1:00 PM Monday afternoon. Are we finally going to hear The Decision? The only other thing I can think of would be something involving Jiri Fischer. Update (03. Jul, 11:05 AM): The concensus seems to be that this conference is to announce Steve Yzerman's retirement. Various bloggers have pointed out correctly that it can't be for a trade or a signing because something big enough to hold a press conference for would have leaked by now. I have to say that some kind of unconscious denial has left me basically unprepared for this. Of course, we'll have a tribute post if he does in fact retire today. Kukla's Korner has a number of sources reporting the obvious: an Yzerman retirement. I wish the Wings had just said it had to do with him from the start. There's no need for secrecy any more. Update (03. Jul, 12:25 PM, Brian)

I hope Yzerman announces his retirement this afternoon, for his sake and the Wings' sake. He was frustrated for the majority of the season and his play obviously doesn't fit in with what Babcock is trying to do. Babcock giving Pavs the final faceoff over Yzerman in Game 6 is the microcosm of this. Also, he has had a number of serious injuries but has been lucky enough to return from them all fairly healthy. He does not need to risk his health for another season, he has proven enough. He and his family deserve his health and well-being in his retirement. The only reason he should be returning is to get to 700 goals, but the previous reasons outweight this. Some players might also want to have a pre-determined "last game" with a final skate, like Gretzky did. But Yzerman is not that type of player, so I doubt it bothers him not to have that. And for the Wings' sake, if he returned it'd be another rocky season of Yzerman dealing with Babcock's system and limited ice time. The $1.2 M salary he would likely get would also take up valuable salary cap space. And for the few games where he flashed brilliance last season, he was invisible for the rest. It's just the right time for the era to end. It's been 22 seasons and I don't like to see it end but at the same time it's the right time and I don't see a better time coming.

2 Comments:

At 7/03/2006 11:27:00 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hey Matt, I'm right there with you. His personal deadline was this weekend, and it came and went quietly. After considering it last night, I have to reluctantly admit that Steve wouldn't hold a press conference to announce a decision to play one more year. It's not his understated style.

Even though it's been looming for years, like you, I'm not quite ready for the end of this era.

 
At 7/03/2006 04:06:00 PM, Blogger Brian List said...

Wings miss out on Aaron Ward... :(

http://www.tsn.ca/nhl/news_story/?ID=170408&hubname=nhl

 

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