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If you’re holding your breath awaiting a blockbuster trade from the Detroit Red Wings before Monday’s 3 p.m. EST NHL trade deadline passes, you might want to take a breath, because it just isn’t going to happen.
There’s not enough cap space, nor is there the move to make that would put the Wings up into the status of elite Stanley Cup contender.
It’s the latter more than the former that figures to keep the Wings from being active during the last-minute trade frenzy.
“If you want to make a deal, there’s always ways to make a deal,” Detroit general manager Ken Holland said. “My thinking as we head into Monday is cap space has nothing to do with whether we make a deal.
“It has to do with where the Detroit Red Wings are.”
Right now, where the Wings are is in a desperate fight for a playoff spot, currently hanging on to one of the two wild card spots in the Eastern Conference. The team has struggled to consistently score goals all season long, displayed an inability or a reluctance to go to the hard areas to produce goals and has exhibited occasional defensive deficiencies.
Not exactly what you’d describe as a team that’s a piece or two away from winning it all.
A year ago, the Wings moved at the deadline to acquire forward Erik Cole and defenseman Marek Zidlicky, two moves that looked good on paper, but when Cole suffered a neck injury late in the regular season and Zidlicky a concussion during Detroit’s first-round playoff series loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning, neither transaction really made much of an impact in the long run.
“Give then age of some of the key players on our team, we took a run at it last year,” Holland said.
There doesn’t seem to be the same appetite for that sort of scenario this season.
“Right now, do I anticipate us doing anything?” Holland asked rhetorically. “I don’t know.
“I don’t anticipate trading any top prospects or high draft picks.”
Holland is happy with the club’s depth on the blue line, so there won’t be any move to add a depth defenseman. Up front, the emergence of rookies Dylan Larkin and Andreas Athanasiou, coupled with the future prospects of Anthony Mantha and Evgeni Svechnikov, give the Wings a much more positive feeling about life at forward after Henrik Zetterberg and Pavel Datsyuk move on.
To blow it all up in search of a trade to try and put this team over the top – a move that simply isn’t there – would be foolhardy.
Oh, and the popular theory that the Wings can move goalie Jimmy Howard by Monday?
Yeah, that’s not going to happen.
“We’re not making a move in goal,” Holland said.
High-priced contracts like Howard’s with significant term remaining don’t get moved at the trade deadline. Those deals get done during the off-season.
Besides, if the Wings trade Howard, then who is their back-up goalie? Even if they were able to find a taker for Howard, suppose Petr Mrazek shreds his groin the first game after the deadline. Now the Wings are driving down the stretch with Tom McCollum and Jared Coreau as their last line of defense.
Can you say goodbye playoff streak?
The harsh reality of this Detroit team is that it is good enough to make the playoffs again, for the 25th straight season, and that’s about it. And there’s nothing the Wings can do by Monday that’s going to change this fact of life.
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