wow.

What else is there to say? ( I know hockey season is over….but this free agency season has been CRAZY)

As if the Red Wings weren’t already number one, and proved it by attaining both the Presidents’ Trophy AND Lord Stanley’s Cup this year. As if they needed anything else going into next year to be competitive. Here’s an update on just the past month:

Hasek retired. We knew that was coming. But Osgood is definitely back for another season….good enough, right? Wrong. We’ve signed Ty Conklin (remember the outdoor hockey game in Buffalo last season?) as our backup goalie. Check the stats. This guy is a brick wall.

Chelios has declared intentions to stay with the team one more season at least. Although he knows he’ll probably down on the 3rd or 4th lines. Defensively, Detroit was the best in the league. There was fear about Brad Stuart leaving the Wings, but we still would’ve been already with Lidstrom, Kronwall, Lilja, and Lebda, etc. But Stuart signed on for 2 more years…SOLID.

How about forwards? As the team with the most goals for in the league this past year, and all the players returning, you’d think we’d be set, right? But wait….Hasek is gone, which frees up some room in our salary cap. So what do we do? Remember that guy, Hossa, one of the top scorers for the Penguins as we fought through the final round of the Cup playoffs? Oh yeah….we totally just signed him for a year.

So to re-cap….take the Presidential Stanley Cup winning team from this year….give them better goal-tending depth, another solid defensive year, and an even higher scoring offense.

We are totally going to win the cup again next year.

We may even beat Chicago once or twice during the regular season. 🙂 (Right Noah?)