Red Wings sign Jon Merrill to a one-year contract

The Red Wings have added to the blueline.

The team has signed Jonothan Merrill to a one-year deal worth $925k.

Merrill is one of the league’s best pure shutdown defencemen, so this is a great bargain addition for the Wings. He doesn’t produce much offence (he scored 25 points over 140 games over the past three seasons with Vegas) but adding such a strong, veteran, defensive defenceman will be helpful for Detroit’s young blueline.

Another thing to consider is that a player like Merrill who plays such a strong shutdown game is that he’ll surely be coveted by other teams come trade deadline time. Steve Yzerman has essentially added a veteran for the first half of the season he can flip for a second- or third-round pick later on. Tidy business.