Why the Wings Should Not Re-sign Mike Green

As reports of a meeting between Ken Holland and Mike Green started to circle around, thanks to Craig Custance of the Athletic, rumors started to swirl that the Red Wings are looking on re-signing the 32-year-old defenseman.

If he is indeed re-signed to play on the Red Wings next season, this would continue the story of Ken Holland and his group mishandling this team into irrelevance. Every single offseason in recent memory the management team of this hockey club has done at least one thing to set this franchise back a couple of years. From signing aging free agents to big contracts, to drafting horribly, this team sure knows how to not become a successful team in the modern NHL.

Here are multiple reasons to not sign Mike Green, or any free agent, this summer.

Holland himself stated that he is looking for young players to contribute next season, and some of those players are going to be defensemen. There is no way that Green will or should be able to fit into this roster to get significant playing time.

Kronwall, Ericsson, Daley, DeKeyser, Jensen, and Ouellet are all defensemen that are still under contract for next season. If no moves are made, then there is already the six blueliners that you need to put out a starting lineup come October. Custance did mention in his article that both Holland and Ouellet are looking for a trade to happen, to get a “fresh start” somewhere else with one year and $1.25m still on his contract.

That still only leaves one spot open, and as of now, Luke Witkowski could even fill that spot if they were desperate to not have any rookies on the blueline.

The season Filip Hronek had should guarantee him a roster spot for next season, no question about it. But that is all dependent on Green not re-signing with the Red Wings and going somewhere else.

As of now, there is absolutely no room to be bothered with an aging defenseman, no matter what. Even if you can see him as an asset to sell at the deadline and contribute some future assets to this team, it still makes no sense – which leads me to my next reason.

Wouldn’t it be great if the Red Wings were able to trade Green away this past deadline?

With the prices some teams were paying for decent players, the Wings could have gotten a pretty sweet haul for a UFA offensive defenseman – but that was unable to happen due to Green suffering an injury.

I’m not blaming Green in any way, but there is no reason to re-sign him just to have a chance to sell him at the deadline again. There is no certainty that he will contribute the same amount of production that he had for the Wings last season and can amount to no future benefit in the end.

Whatever value you can imagine getting in return for Green at the deadline, will not be worth clogging up the blueline and forcing the young, NHL-ready, defenseman to continue to rot in the AHL. This is not the way to successfully introduce young talent to your team – you won’t get anywhere when a player has their prime athletic years behind them and they finally are “awarded” a spot on the NHL roster.

Even if the Wings are successful in selling him at the deadline, there isn’t much to be had for such a player. The couple mid-round picks, or maybe you fooled a team into spending a late-1st-round pick on him, that still does not equal the value of having a young defenseman learn at the top level. More draft picks are great for this team, but not when you’re running the risk of a player losing motivation in the AHL.

This was clear when Joe Hicketts should have definitely played this whole season with the Wings, but Green and newly-acquired Trevor Daley were taking up a prime roster spot for Hicketts. His season with the Griffins suffered because of that and now he is seen in not such a great light as he was just a year prior. They should not make the same mistake this summer.

This team is heading towards the dangerous area of trying to still compete while getting younger. Many NHL teams have tried and failed miserably.

Sure, watching Mike Green might be a little bit better than the other defensemen this team currently has, but it’s not worth the sacrifice. They will be sacrificing the future just to have a slightly more entertaining product on the ice. They need to commit to a plan and that plan should be to rebuild as much as they can.

There are massive contracts that limit the Red Wings’ ability to fully rebuild like other teams in the past –  re-signing Mike Green will create just another hurdle to get over and into the eventual and necessary rebuild.

At his age, there is no way that he will accept anything less than a 3-year contract. Logically, I don’t blame him. He is looking for that final payday before he kisses goodbye to playing in the NHL.

He just came off of a 3-year 18-million dollar contract, why would he settle for less than that when it could be his final contract? He is certainly not worth any more, but there is no reason to believe that he would accept a short-term deal – it might be his last.

For both parties, it just makes sense to say goodbye and wish each other luck in their future endeavors. Green will be heading to a team in need of a right-handed offensive defenseman (basically whatever team doesn’t get John Carlson), and Detroit will be heading to the tank with a little more cap room than they are used to.

It was fun, but we should probably move on.