For sure it’s a roll of the dice, but the way Ken Holland looks at it, what have they got to lose?
That’s the attitude with which the Detroit Red Wings are approaching their recent addition of free-agent defenseman Libor Sulak. The Wings signed the 6-3, 207-pound Czech defender to a two-year entry-level contract, and see him as a late bloomer with the potential to perhaps develop into an NHL defenseman.
“I was at the world championship,” Red Wings general manager Holland said. “(Detroit scout) Jiri Fischer . . . he was involved with the Czech team and there was a number of two or three players that we were looking at on that team. Some signed with other teams.”
A left-hand shot, Sulak played last season with Orli Znojmo, a Czech team that performs in Eishockey Liga, Austria’s top pro division. He finished fourth on the team in scoring with 10-18-28 numbers and led the club with a plus-19 rating. Sulak scored a team-best three goals in the playoffs, leading to his debut with the Czech Republic national team at the recently-completed world championships in France and Germany, where he collected one assist in two games.
“He’s 23 years of age,” Holland said. “He’s a real good skater.”
Now, jumping directly from the Austrian League into the NHL would have to be considered a very unlikely longshot, but can Sulak step up from Austria to the AHL next season? That’s the question the Wings must answer before the fall.
Sulak already has inked a deal to play next season with the Lahden Pelicans of the Finnish League, so they can afford to be patient if need be.
“We’re going to bring him over to the development camp in July and then we’ll assess whether we want to bring him over to the main camp or to let him go to Finland and have another year of development,” Holland said. “For a year, he’s best off to take a step up to play in another league. To try to go from the Austrian League to the National Hockey League, it’s a massive jump.”
“But Fish and I think he’s a player that has a chance to be an NHL defenseman. He needs more time, more experience to learn to play his position.”
Considering Detroit’s pedestrian defensive unit and overall inability to move the puck up to the forwards and get it clear of the defensive zone - remember captain Henrik Zetterberg’s telling comment last season of, “It seems like we have the puck, and then all of a sudden, we don’t,” rolling the dice on defenders isn’t a bad strategy for the Wings.
They have 2016 first-round draft pick Dennis Cholowski already signed and can assign him to junior if he’s not ready to step into the pros just yet. Vili Saarijarvi and Joe Hicketts are undersized puck movers, and 2016 second-round pick Filip Hronek, much like countryman Sulak, is someone who could prove to be a late bloomer. Taking into account how painful it is on many nights to watch what the Wings currently deploy on the back end, they need at least a couple of these prospects to pan out.
Adding Sulak to this group is a relatively no-risk play that could pay off in the long run. It occasionally happens that a player slips through the cracks and becomes a star. No NHL team originally wanted former Wing Brian Rafalski and he ended up with multiple Stanley Cups and enshrinement in the U.S Hockey Hall of Fame.
“I like that he’s 6-3,” Holland said of Sulak. “I like that he can skate. I like that he continues to improve. Obviously, Jiri Fischer knows him as a person, what makes him tick.
“It’s an entry-level contract, a two-year contract. It’s not like there’s a ton of risk. We feel like there’s the potential for some upside that he could play in the National Hockey League.”
Detroit Red Wings Blogger • 
Join the Discussion:
»