Why Re-Signing Mike Green Makes Sense
By Cameron Kuom
6 years agoCongratulations Wings fans, we made it through the trade deadline!
Surprising, Ken Holland opted not to trade pending free-agent Mike Green, which left many scratching their heads, and calling for his head. Now while I would have moved Green — even for the expected price of a 2nd round pick — it’s not entirely fair to rip him for staying put with Green. None of us were in on his trade discussions, so for all that we know, teams weren’t willing to meet his asking price.
There were a lot of factors that could have lead to this. The biggest being Green’s absence in the last five games due to injury, but teams were also kicking tires on Erik Karlsson and Ryan McDonagh first (both of which had discussions going up to the final minutes), leaving Green as a plan-B. And by that point, the Vegas Golden Knights began trade talks for Tomas Tatar (which was a tremendous trade for Detroit). So the choice was to net the return for Tatar (and not be restricted by Tatar’s No-trade-clause, which kicks in on July 1st), or trade Green for an underwhelming return to a team rushing to get a last second trade once McDonagh was traded to Tampa Bay. Obviously there were some complications, and jumping on the Tatar deal was the right move.
But anyway, the point is Green is still a member of the Red Wings and he can either walk this summer or re-sign an extension. Detroit has already expressed their interested towards the latter.
At this current stage, this would be the right move… kinda. A cheap one year deal without any form of a no-trade-clause is how this should go. Under the right conditions, a two year deal could work, but one year is ideal. There are a few reasons why this would be in the best interest of the team.
- He can be moved at next year’s deadline. While that may seem a little ironic since they had the opportunity this year, they’ll have the chance at getting a better return since he (theoretically) won’t have a no-trade clause complicating things. A cheaper cap-hit should make moving him more flexible for most teams. This also adds some more support to the argument I made at the beginning, as instead of taking a third round pick this year (which seemed most likely, all things considered), they can get more for him next year. While they could have potentially re-signed him as a free-agent in the summer, they would most likely have to drive up the price in a bidding war. There is now a very good chance he re-signs in Detroit since they showed a level of respect by not just trading him for the sake of trading him.
- We don’t have to throw a prospect defenseman into the fire. With both Joe Hicketts and Filip Hronek making strong cases for roster spots next season, they’re going to have their struggles. With the return of Green to not only mentor them, he can be a stop-gap for them. That way we are not throwing them to the wolves and hoping they’re ready.
- It shouldn’t prevent the Wings from extending Andreas Athanasiou, Tyler Bertuzzi, Martin Frk, Dylan Larkin, and Anthony Mantha. With both Petr Mrazek and Tatar being shipped out of town, the Wings financial situation shouldn’t be much of a concern this off-season. Based on Matt Cane’s latest 2018 free-agent prediction model, the Wings should be able to get these extensions done, and still have some breathing room. With the NHL salary-cap projected to rise to $80 million for the 2018-19 season, here’s what things could look like (Johan Franzen was put on LTIR, as expected):
The above lineup was generated with the Armchair GM tool on CapFriendly. All the contract numbers come directly off Cane’s model (Jared Coreau was not included on the model).
This lineup has a projected cap-space of $8.6 million, so it’s pretty safe to say they should be able to bring back Green, and still play around with some trades to make room for some prospects.
One more year in the winged wheel for Greener makes all the sense in the world. And hey, when you mix Green with Red you get Yellow, but it will only get us closer to a Silver Mug!
I’m sorry, I tried.
Recent articles from Cameron Kuom
