Free Agency 2012: Day 4

So far since the NHL’s free agency season opened, we’ve had a day where the Wings brought players in, a day where players left Detroit, and a day when the team was quiet.  Today we had the day the team was left out.

Things started with defenseman Ryan Suter and forward Zach Parise – both Red Wings’ free agent targets – choosing to sign with the Minnesota Wild around noon.  About ten hours later, Detroit’s supposed Plan B – defensman Matt Carle – signed with the Tampa Bay Lightning.

I’m not going to fault any of the players for signing where they did or taking the time they needed to sign.  You become one of the top hockey players in the world and hit free agency, you get to decide things like that.

I’m not happy with the Wings’ organization, however.

I said on Twitter that I didn’t like comments that GM Ken Holland made after the Suter/Parise signings were announced.

“At the end of the day, we feel good about our offers. It was in the ball park of what they signed for.”

To me, that sounds like Holland is fine being close but not finishing on top, which sounds a lot like when Mike Babcock talks about winning forty minutes of a game after a loss.

It’s easy to look at the deals that Parise and Suter signed and say Minnesota overpaid.  It’s also easy to extend that and say we wouldn’t have liked Holland making those deals.  I don’t think it’s true, though.  I think Wings fans would have been thrilled to have the pair for that price and we’re only shaking our heads at the amount or the term because it’s another team that spent it.

“There’s also got to be an opportunity for some of our kids and the guys we’ve just signed to play. It’s not a high profile, big-star team that we’ve had in the past. We made our pitch the last three days and it didn’t fall in our favor.”

Quite honestly, that quote pisses me off.  After all the “we’re going to be very agressive” we heard from Holland, now we’re getting “We don’t need free agents, we’ll let the kids play.”

That means that we’ve got something like a top pair of Niklas Kronwall and Kyle Quincey with Ian White and Brendan Smith next and Jonathan Ericsson and Jakub Kindl on the third pair.  Quite honestly, I’m not okay with that.  Maybe I’m spoiled but I expect better from this team.

And something tells me that if the Wings roll into the 2012-13 season with a $60 million payroll instead of the expected $70 million, season ticket holders won’t be getting 1/7th of what they paid back.

The summer isn’t over and the Wings aren’t done.  I’m not going to write them off.  The buzz now is that they’re looking to make a trade and/or sign Shane Doan, who won’t make a decision about his future until July 8th.

Things could still happen for Detroit, I’m just not happy with how the organization has handled it thus far.