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Clearly, Cleary's time must be done |
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It’s a thin crop of unrestricted free agents that will be available July 1 when NHL teams start bidding for them on the open market, but it appears that the Detroit Red Wings will be adding a few more names to the list.
Detroit general manager Ken Holland hasn’t committed to offering a contract to any of the UFA’s who finished the season with the Wings.
Defenseman Marek Zidlicky, goaltender Jonas Gustavsson and forward Erik Cole all have seemingly played their last games wearing the winged wheel, though Holland plans to discuss the situation during scouting meetings with his staff early next week.
“Our pro scouts are coming in Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, we’re going to go over our team,” Holland said. “(New coach) Jeff Blashill is going to sit in the meeting. I want to get Blash’s thoughts. He’s obviously going to have a different perspective. He hasn’t been with us every day.
“Then we’ll formulate that plan.”
At this point, that plan would not appear to either of last season’s trade-deadline acquisitions, Zidlicky and Cole.
“Zidlicky, I know his agent sent me a text that he’s decided he wants to play next year,” Holland said. “We’re going to go to our pro scout meetings and we’re going to talk about our team. So no on Zidlicky.
“I don’t expect Cole. He won’t be back. I’m not sure what he’s doing, what decisions he’s made in terms of his career (after suffering a season-ending spinal injury).”
It’s definitely the end of the road in Detroit for oft-injured backup goalie Jonas Gustavasson.
“Obviously Gustavsson, we’ve decided to go with (Petr) Mrazek and (Jimmy) Howard, so that sort of answers that question,” Holland said.
It’s the one question concerning free agency that Holland wouldn’t definitively answer that leaves the most cause for concern.
He was completely unclear regarding the future of forward Daniel Cleary.
“Dan Cleary I need to talk to,” Holland said. “Certainly two years ago when he made a decision to stay in Detroit and he’s been offered three-year contracts in Winnipeg and Florida and Philadelphia, I know what he walked away from.
“So my management philosophy, part of it is being loyal and at holding up my end of the bargain. So I need to sit down with Dan Cleary, so I don’t have an answer on Dan Cleary.
“Could he possibly resign? He possibly could resign.”
I’ll pause here now while you all take time out for some primal screaming.
Perhaps Holland simply was protecting Cleary, not wanting to say anything about whether he’d be back before first telling his player that his playing days in Detroit were done.
There are going to be coaching positions open on staffs in both Detroit and Grand Rapids, so maybe they are going to offer Cleary a spot there.
It would be easy to think this, if it weren’t for the recent past history between the Wings and Cleary.
They brought him back last season when he clearly wasn’t the player he’d once been, his previous season ended by knee surgery.
The gamble didn’t pay off. Cleary played just 17 games, producing a goal and an assist, and was never a factor when he did suit up.
With so much young depth piling up on the Detroit depth chart, Cleary is a roadblock the team simply can no longer afford to employ.
Holland definitely recognizes this fact of life.
“The other thing that factors into any decisions we make, if you look forward to this summer and the summer of ’16, we’ve got to re-sign (Gustav) Nyquist, we’ve got to re-sign (Justin) Abdelkader, (Danny) DeKeyser, (Darren) Helm, (Riley) Sheahan, Mrazek, (Tomas) Jurco.
“We’ve got lots of people between the summer of ’15 and summer of ’16, when they get re-signed they go up in salary, they’re going to eat more cap space.”
Most of all, they need to play.
Cleary gave much to the Wings in 10 seasons. He was a three-time 20-goal scorer, a key element in Detroit’s 2007-08 Stanley Cup-winning team.
But those days are long gone.
Clearly, there’s no room for Cleary going forward.
The Wings need to recognize this and make the appropriate move.
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