The Detroit Red Wings Are A Hot MEss!
People often ask me who I think will be the next Detroit professional team to win a championship.
Without thinking, I always said the Detroit Red Wings. No more.
The Red Wings are a mess and could only win a title if they were demoted to the Ontario Hockey League.
Maybe.
Their captain wants out. Their former captain got pushed out and a potential captain of the future got out of the country on the eve of the season-opener Friday against the New York Rangers.
What more can go wrong?
I got it. Owner Chris Ilitch being cheap and lowballing restricted free agent defenseman Simon Edvinsson, who probably saw that the Red Wings were not serious in signing him and booked for home to skate with his hometown team.
The Wings are the Mutt and Jeff Show with Ilitch leading the carnage. Give him this, he is running one of the biggest scams in Detroit sports. He is fooling people by making it seem he wants to spend big to win big. For instance, he paraded a top 10 baseball payroll for one season when he signed left-handed pitcher Framber Valdez to a three-year, $115 million contract.
But the Tigers had no intentions of maintaining such a high payroll which is one reason they traded two-time Cy Young pitcher Tarik Skubal.
Now he is lowballing another team.
I don’t blame the Wings for parting ways with General Manager Steve Yzerman. But why did they do it after allowing him to run another draft and after the best GM candidates were spoken for? They claimed to interview 100 candidates but could not find anyone for the job. Instead, they promoted Shawn Horcoff who we are not sure can make any major moves.
Yzerman is in the building although I am not sure he wants to be there. Larkin is in the building with “an upper body injury” that is keeping him out of the lineup.
Larkin may not be injured. He could be buying time hoping a trade happens. The Wings need him on the payroll to stay above the salary floor agreed upon by the NHL and NHLPA.
What a hot mess.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Terry Foster is the self proclaimed Minister of Words with Woodward Sports and fills in on shows when folks need time off. He worked at the Detroit News and Free Press for 37 years and co-hosted the Valenti and Foster Show for 13 years at the Detroit Lions flagship.
