Change the "IF" to "WHEN"

[WingNut722]

Niklas Lidstrom has decided to hang 'em up! Press conference tomorrow morning at Joe Louis Arena!

[SpikeDDS]

Yep. End of an era. Second best defenseman to ever play the game. Only Orr gets the nod over him.

Good for him. This almost certainly means the end for Tomas Holmstrom as well, which is good.

Time for the Wings to develop some of their young talent and buy some good talent as well. I'm optimistic for the future of the Wings.

End of one era just means the start of a new one. GO WINGS!

[hf101]

@WingNut722

Suter to Detroit E5.

[hf101]

Lidstrom's skates and confidence on the ice are not easy to replace.

Who will wear the "C" next season?

[WingNut722]

@hf101

Hopefully we'll get Suter. Matt Carle would be a good acquisition as well, if the Flyers will let him go.

Henrik Zetterberg is the favorite to get the C. He gets my vote too.

[flyercanuck]

What a class act Lidstrom has been his entire career. The Red Wings will surely miss him, but so will the entire NHL, and hockey fans in general. I may be glad he's not playing for Detroit anymore, but it sucks we won't get to see the best longterm defenceman ever.

[WingNut722]

Well said, @flyercanuck. I certianly agree! There will be a rather large hole in the first defense pairing for a long time.

[SpikeDDS]

@WingNut722

And not just in that first pairing. The WHOLE TEAM will miss his leadership-by-example mentoring to the younger players. That reason ALONE would have been enough reason to make me want him for one more year. Let Brendan Smith play with him for one more year and try to take on some of Nick's work ethic.

The good news is that Pavel Datsyuk is similar in work ethic. As good as he is, he is still often the first on the ice and the last off. There is a reason he is good.

In both cases, talent certainly plays a role in how good they are. But without their work ethic, they would not be whom they have become. Young players need to see that. Hopefully there will be enough residual example left from our other veterans, but NONE of them will be able to display the consistent level of play that Lidstrom did just about every time he stepped on the ice. Contrast this with, say, Franzen.

I'm looking forward to seeing what a guy like Suter can offer to add to this team.

Parise may not be leaving now.

[JackStraw]

@SpikeDDS - do you think the Wings might make a play for Semin? The guy is a world class talent and handled correctly (which I think the Detroit coaches and management could do) he could be a heck of a player.

[WingNut722]

@SpikeDDS

That's true, Spike, and in the last 20 years with the Winged Wheel, you can certainly expect that Lidstrom's pride and work ethic have rubbed off on the rest of the team. Datsyuk, Zetterberg, Franzen, all of them will now be leading by example in replacement of ol' Number 5. If Detroit lands Suter, it is he who will be following, not leading.

@JackStraw I hope not. Back in the regular season when it was discussed that Semin might be traded, I decided that it would not be a good play for the Wings. I wrote a post about it a long time ago. He can be a particularly dangerous scorer, but this has not been the case the last few years. Maybe it's because he's unhappy in Washington, but he'd be asking for an awful lot of money. For a player as shaky as that, the Wings might as well offer Jiri Hudler another deal with a significant raise. Hudler had a great season after a very dull one last year, and if he's offered a huge raise to keep him in Detroit, it still would be much less than what Semin would get.

[flyercanuck]

@WingNut722

I'd expect Semin to go to the KHL where floating is accepted.