Wings sign Luke Witkowski to a 1 year, $750K contract

The Red Wings have signed defenseman Luke Witkowski to a 1 year, $750,000 contract.

The Wings made this signing after also signing Trevor Daley to continue to shore up their defense. However, Helene St. James reports that he’s more likely to play forward for the Wings than defense.

Witkowski was a 160th overall pick of the Tampa Bay Lightning in 2008. At 27, Witkowski has 54 NHL games, with four assists in those games, all four of them coming this season in 34 games. In the AHL, he has 39 points in 218 games.

However, Witkowski is more known for his toughness. If you choose to believe that penalty minutes means toughness, Witkowski has 59 PIMs in his 54 NHL games. In the AHL, he sees a significant spike, as he has 524 PIMs in 218 games.

As for his advanced stats, Witkowski had a 49.6% 5v5 CF% this season, and a -1.1 5v5 CF% Rel to his team, while seeing a relitively even split between offensive, neutral, and defensive zone starts.

Whether he plays forward or defense, I don’t really see a fit for him on the Wings roster, although Blashill will probably find a spot for him. So, this is probably more of a press box/AHL signing, and will probably only see limited action with the Wings in the event of injuries.

The Wings probably didn’t need to sign Witkowski, because it just gives Blashill another option to put over the young guys, but there’s no saying for sure as to what Blashill thinks of him. He doesn’t look like a terrible fourth line/third pair option, but he also isn’t a steal of a signing, so this either means that Holland thinks he’s going to garner a lot of trade value, or he’s already drifiting from his ideology of flipping players at the deadline.