New Era Redwings Look to Re-sign Zetterberg.

By Chris Turner, Zetterbergfan.com, July 16th, 2005

The National Hockey League has announced that it has come to agreement with the NHL Players Association on a new six-year collective bargaining agreement and that there will be a 2005-06 NHL season. The entire 2004-05 NHL season was lost due to the NHL team owners locking out the players until they agreed to a 39 million dollar hard salary cap for each team as well as a 24% roll-back in all current players contracts.

The Detroit Redwings roster will certainly be affected by the new salary cap system, as they are used to owner Mike Ilitch spending as neccesary to bring top NHL veterans to the Motor City for their annual push for Lord Stanley's Cup. However, the recent failings in the 2003 and 2004 playoffs as well as the new CBA has forced the Redwings to head in a new direction. The Wings may have to buy out the contracts of several players including veteran bruiser Derian Hatcher, goalie Curtis Joseph, winger Ray Whitney, and even fan favorite Darren McCarty who was a huge part of Detroit's recent three NHL Championships. Last week they fired head coach Dave Lewis, predacessor to legend Scotty Bowman. Lewis may have been guilty of befriending the players too much. He was not able to get the Redwing's past harder working but less talented and lower budget teams in the playoffs. This week the organization announced the hiring of fiery leader Mike Babcock of the Anaheim Mighty Ducks. Management hopes he will bring passion and determination to the team this season.

In addition to the new coach the Redwings are ready to turn to younger players to lead the team into the future. General Manger Ken Holland has said the the top priority is re-signing their talented young restricted free agents; Pavel Datsyuk and Henrik Zetterberg. Datsyuk was a restricted free agent at the end of the 2003-04 season and spent the last season playing in his homeland, Russia, for Moscow Dynamo. There have been rumors that he may prefer to stay in Russia if he can not get a contract that he is happy with in Detroit. The Wings badly need his flashy offensive skills back in the lineup.

Zetterberg who lost the final season on his three year 2.5 million dollar NHL contract due to the lockout, also returned to play for his hometown Timrå Red Eagles in the Swedish Elite League last season. Zetterberg is also a restricted free agent, but he has indicated that he would like to return to Detroit.

As a restricted free agents, the Redwings have to make Datysuk and Zetterberg qualifying offers by July 31st. After that, any NHL team can offer these players a contract, but the Redwings have the right to match the offer. If they choose not to match the offer they will be compensated with a draft pick determined by the players new contract.