NESN.COM: Jame Murphy reported prior to the Bruins signing of defenseman Derek Morris that the club's trading of Aaron Ward and planned buyout of recently acquired forward Patrick Eaves was no guarantee the club would re-sign winger Phil Kessel. Murphy wondered what would happen to Kessel if the Bruins signed Morris or another defenseman, if the winger would be the odd man out or if GM Peter Chiarelli might trade another player (perhaps forward Chuck Kobesaw and his $2.9 million salary) to free up cap space to re-sign Kessel. Murphy suggested if the Bruins shopped Kessel the Detroit Red Wings, who could lose winger Jiri Hudler to the KHL, might be a team to contact.
MLIVE.COM: George James Malik dismissed the notion of the Red Wings pursuing Kessel given the latter's rumored salary demands of more than $4 million per season.
SPECTOR'S NOTE: Bruins GM Chiarelli clearly isn't done dealing as he'll be almost tapped out of cap space once Eaves buyout is completed. He's stated several times in recent weeks he intends to re-sign Kessel so if we take him at his word that means another Bruin will likely be traded. I agree with Malik that the Red Wings probably won't be interested in Kessel if the Bruins were to shop him. As for Seidenberg he'll have to try the UFA market again but could end up lowering his salary demands. As for Babchuk he's a restricted free agent and the Hurricanes qualified his rights. If he refuses to sign the qualifying offer they'll either have to trade him or as expected he could return to the KHL.
http://blog.mlive.com/snapshots/2009/07/ju...hil_kessel.html
Just saying 'no' to Phil Kessel, II: Red Wings won't trade anyone away, either
Posted by George James Malik July 25, 2009 15:10PM
In the wake of James Murphy's suggestion that the Red Wings might be interested in acquiring Boston Bruins forward Phil Kessel, whose status as a restricted free agent with Jiri Hudler-like $4 million-plus salary demands, I read Spector's take on the contributing factors to Murphy's suggestion.
The Bruins theoretically cleared enough cap space to retain Kessel by trading Aaron Ward to the Carolina Hurricanes for winger Patrick Eaves, who they're buying out, but the B's signed Derek Morris on Friday night, essentially negating their cap cushion.
Then I read a suggestion on Lowetide that the Red Wings might be willing to move Valtteri Filppula, Johan Franzen, or Brad Stuart to the Oilers for help up front, and I plain old laughed out loud.
The Red Wings are not going to trade one of their core players away to "help" another team. I would argue that the only personnel subtraction the Wings might make in the next four months, some sort of miraculous resolution with Jiri Hudler aside, would be to trade Derek Meech when/if Andreas Lilja returns from his post-concussive symptoms.
The Wings' brass is looking for bargains, and I would imagine that they want to sign two forwards, not one, to fill that $1.5-1.6 million in salary cap space they have left. Two forwards mean both more depth and Justin Abdelkader playing 20 minutes a night in Grand Rapids instead of sitting on the bench for 50 minutes a night in Detroit. As such, you can toss suggestions that the Wings would go after someone like Alex Tanguay out of the equation, and I don't believe that the Wings have any interest in re-hashing Todd Bertuzzi's bad penalties, Robert Lang's icy relationship with Mike Babcock, or Jason Williams' tendency to show up once every third game. I've suggested that Petr Sykora might make a good target, but he'd also have to take a huge pay cut, as would any other player the Wings would target, so...
I look at someone like the player the B's are buying out in Patrick Eaves, a 25-year-old who made $1.4 million last season and will receive a buyout of $933,333.34 spread out over the next four seasons (he had two years remaining on his contract), as someone that the Red Wings might take a stab at if he's willing to play for a highly discounted rate. The 5'11," 190-lb. winger came into the league as a highly-heralded prospect for the Ottawa Senators, but he topped out at 20 goals during his first season and 34 points in his second, with his speed, skill, and forechecking producing very little since his trade to Carolina.
The Patrick Eaveses and Taylor Pyatts of the hockey world offer the kind of, "We'll sign you to an entry-level deal if you do well in camp, and then we'll see what you can do" punch that the Wings are looking for, with Dan Cleary serving as the best example of a player counted down and out of the NHL delivering on his promise, and Brent Sopel's decision to turn down a contract from the Wings to head to Chicago and fade into the background as a non-playing millstone as the worst result.
I have no better guesses as to who the Wings might target than you do, but I can at least definitively state that the Wings will not trade a promising young prospect, nor a contributing player for a short-term fix. The Wings will go after a forward or two who is either willing to take a discount to play for Detroit and reestablish himself, or is plain old willing to sign a near-entry level deal ($550,000 to $750,000) because he's got to prove that he belongs in the NHL, period.
The Wings didn't let Mikael Samuelsson or Tomas Kopecky go because they wanted to acquire or sign another disgruntled player who's asking for more than he's worth, nor do they have any desire to trade away assets to plug holes. If you can get a player for nothing more than the price of his contract, and especially if you can get him to come to town for a discount in August or September, you follow that path of least resistance and let other teams' followers keep dreaming of fleecing you.
