Red Wings assign three players to the Griffins, reduce roster to 22

Just before the 5:00 p.m. deadline today, the Red Wings announced that Luke Witkowski, Joe Hicketts, and Filip Hronek will be assigned to Grand Rapids.

Because of the deadline, it was mandatory that the Red Wings only had 23 players on their roster at that time. Even with injuries included, they were limited to 23 players.

As Ansar Khan states above, with injuries to both Kronwall and Ericsson, it looks like they will be placed on IR, then the Wings will recall Hicketts and Hronek to fill-out their spots on the blueline.

As of now, it looks like Trevor Daley, Danny DeKeyser, Libor Sulak, Dennis Cholowski, Joe Hicketts, and Filip Hronek will be your six defencemen on Thursday.

In lesser news, Luke Witkowski was also sent down after clearing waivers a couple days ago. The Red Wings seem to like Christoffer Ehn in their bottom-six rather than face-puncher Witkowski.

He will most likely be placed in a depth role on the Griffins for the 2018-19 season.