By AJ Petronzi
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Biggest Winner: The rest of the Central Division. The Wing’s defense has gotten a little bigger, a little grittier and a lot cheaper but they’ll have to hope Jimmy Howard has a great year, because he’s not going to get much help from the defense this year.
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Detroit Red Wings fans should be concerned about the Wing’s defense this coming season. With five defenseman under contract, only three Wings defenseman should be trusted.
It appears that Ken Holland spent most of his free agency day retaining his own free agents. Detroit quickly signed Jonathan Ericsson and Patrick Eaves for three years each, then followed up by retaining Drew Miller for another two years. But the big news is that the Wings have signed Mike Commodore to add more to their defensive core.
With one defensive slot still open, will Detroit decide to find a real replacement for Brian Rafalski or continue to put their hopes on games of chance. Jonathan Ericsson is seeing roughly a two million dollar raise, so is Holland’s hope that Ericsson steps up and becomes a top four defenseman? I hope not. Is the right hand shooting Commodore Rafalski’s replacement? That’d be an even larger nightmare. Let’s hope Holland still has some tricks up his sleeve, because the only way Detroit’s going to find a true top four defenseman at this point is through a trade.
