Is no news good news?

In the case of Andreas Athanasiou, the Detroit Red Wings would have to believe that to be the case.

It’s been well over a week since Darren Ferris, agent for the restricted free agent forward, revealed that Athanasiou, whose contracts talks with the Wings appear to have hit an impasse, was surrounded by offers from KHL clubs, offers that the Athanasiou camp indicated were significantly more lucrative than anything on the table from the Detroit side of the negotiations.

Unconfirmed published reports suggested that the Wings have offered Athanasiou, 23, who was second on the club last season with 18 goals, a two-year deal valued at $1.9 million per season. Speculation is that he has KHL offers worth in the neighborhood of $3 million per season, including one from top club Ak Bars Kazan.

Yet here he is, still without a contract.

“Nothing to add at this time,” Ferris reported Monday via text.

You’d have to think that if Athanasiou was serious about going to the KHL, he’d have gone by now. That league’s season is already underway.

Playing the waiting game looks like it might just pay off for the Wings.

Second City Second Chance?
Veteran forward Drew Miller, who put up 5-2-7 numbers in 57 games for the Wings last season, will attend the training camp of the Chicago Blackhawks on a pro tryout basis.

Miller, 33, played 504 games over the past eight seasons for the Wings.

Last And Least
It used to be that when it came to the Stanley Cup, the Red Wings were always in the conversation.

This season, Wings fans had better hope that talk is cheap. Bovada.lv, the nation’s top online sportsbook, is giving the Wings the same chance of lifting the Stanley Cup at the end of the 2017-18 NHL season as the first-year expansion Las Vegas Golden Knights.

Both teams are assigned the longest odds on the board at +10,000, meaning that if you bet $100 on the Wings to win the Cup and they come through, you would pocket a cool $1 million.

The Colorado Avalanche, New Jersey Devils, Arizona Coyotes and Vancouver Canucks were also assigned odds of $10,000. That’s the kind of company the Wings keep these days.

By way of comparison, on the eve of his fight with multiple world champion Floyd Mayweather, UFC world champion Conor McGregor, who’d never boxed professionally in his life, was given odds of +300 by Bovada to defeat Mayweather.

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