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Zetterberg heading home sooner than later makes perfect sense |
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Henrik Zetterberg leaving the Detroit Red Wings sooner than later makes perfect sense.
The Detroit Red Wings captain allowed to Swedish website Aftonbladet that it’s likely he won’t play more than two more seasons for the team, even though he has four years remaining on his contract, a 12-year pact he signed in 2009.
“The only reason why we wrote such a long contract was because of the payroll,” Zetterberg explained to Aftonbladet. “It is quite obvious that you try to fool the system.
“Actually, I may have two years left, but I have also learned to take one year at a time. But I will probably not play until then (the 2020-21 season, when his contract expires).”
It would not be a shock were Zetterberg to call it quits after the upcoming season, Detroit’s first in the new Little Caesars Arena, especially if the Wings miss the playoffs again and there are no indications that the team will turn a corner toward playoff contention anytime soon.
Anyone who spends time around the Wings will talk quietly of the demanding physical regimen Zetterberg must go through on a daily basis just to be able to play the game. The years of punishment at the NHL level have taken a severe toll on his body and he underwent back surgery in 2014.
For most players, it is not waning passion for the game that causes them to walk away. It’s what they are required to do just to be able to play the game that convinces them the time has come to go.
Zetterberg, who will turn 37 in October, will earn $7 million for the upcoming season, but that plummets to $3.35 million in 2018-19 and $1 million for each of the last two seasons of the contract.
After a splendid 2016-17 season during which he played all 82 games and led the Wings in scoring with 68 points, Zetterberg looked forward to getting back on the ice.
“I think I’m leaving here with more positive feeling than I did last year,” Zetterberg said when the Wings cleaned out their lockers in early April. “I just hope that I can come in here next year and be a similar player.”
Zetterberg, who has a son named Love with his wife Emma Andersson, also admitted that he is growing homesick for their native Sweden.
“If you ask me seven years ago, I'd probably say I'll stay in Detroit when my career is over, but now it's quite clear that I'm moving home,” Zetterberg told Aftonbladet. “After about 15 years there, (Detroit) has become a home
“I have many friends and acquaintances there, but I miss Sweden more.”
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