The Red Wings season is now over, having fallen to the Anaheim Ducks in six games. Yes, they were the top seed in the west, but most experts picked the Wings to lose to the Flames, then the Sharks, and then the Ducks, so perhaps the conference finals exit is more of an achievement than most prognosticators will admit. The Ducks certainly had the best goaltender remaining in the playoffs in pending free agent (more on that in a bit) Jean-Sebastien Giguere and a fearsome tandem on defense, but their lack of offensive depth gave the Wings a definite opening, one that they couldn’t quite grasp. When the Wings stuck to their 2007 game plan by causing havoc in front of the net, cycling the puck, and rotating their positions in the offensive zone, they put the puck in the back of the net. When they retreated to the perimeter offense that caused many of their early exits, they couldn’t buy a break. I was amazed by how many times Wings players had the puck on their sticks with a glorious opportunity, only to have it bounce over the blade or glance off the heel. I can hardly blame the players for the quality of the ice or the bounce of the puck, but tantalizing moments like those kept coming up.

As I look toward the 2007 off-season, here’s my evaluation of the Wings’ positions:

Forwards: The team’s forward lines had a bit of an overhaul late in the season with the addition of Todd Bertuzzi and Kyle Calder, but those players were frustrating at best. Bertuzzi is a shell of his former self, occasionally mustering the spirit which drove his finest moments as a Canuck, but more often dumping the puck back to the defense when he had a chance to drive hard to the net. He showed a few flashes of life, but not enough to merit as much ice time as he received late in the Ducks series. Kyle Calder was a waste of space as a healthy scratch. Maybe he’ll revive his career in another city, but he did absolutely nothing in Detroit. Both of these players are unrestricted free agents, so I look forward to waving a cheery goodbye to their respective five and three million dollar salaries. Another UFA, Robert Lang, had some better moments during the playoffs, but not enough to merit four million against the cap. He had an up-and-down season (I’m well aware of this, since he was on my fantasy team for part of it), but disappeared for months at a time.

The Wings’ top line of Pavel Datsyuk, Henrik Zetterberg, and Tomas Holmstrom was split up in game three of the Ducks series, but all three played well throughout the playoffs. Datsyuk answered questions about his spotty playoff record, Zetterberg often dominated the puck, and Holmstrom was a warrior. While they authored the game six comeback, I thought there were moments, especially in road games, when the trio could have done more to dominate the flow of the game like Anaheim’s Getzlaf / Perry line would. Mikael Samuelsson typically played with Zetterberg and Holmstrom after Datsyuk left the line and held his own with his excellent shot and passing abilities.

Dan Cleary was the Wings’ best forward throughout the playoffs and set the tone for their re-emergence as a physical team. He’s not even getting a million a year, but he’s precisely what the Wings need on their third line to fill in for the hitting of Darren McCarty and Martin Lapointe. Kris Draper and Kirk Maltby are the remaining members of the Grind Line, and while they didn’t quite hold their own in the scoring department, Draper’s plastering hit in game five was a highlight of the series. Maltby just resigned, so these guys will be around for a while.

While I’d hoped that the Wings would make the finals, the biggest bright spot from this season was the emergence of a variety of young guys in key roles, much like the Ducks’ rookies last season. While Johan Franzen, Tomas Kopecky, Jiri Hudler, and Valtteri Filppula may not have the upside of Getzlaf, they each showed the potential to fill key roster spots in the future. Franzen, “the Mule,” is a big body who could learn a few things from Holmstrom about scoring touch in front of the net, but managed to score some clutch goals at critical times, like the marker that finished off Calgary. Kopecky replaced Calder in the Anaheim series and traded big hits and speed with a frustrating propensity to take minor penalties, but should be better once he’s accustomed to the team. Hudler showed a good amount of speed in his typically brief appearances, but may need scoring line time to emerge as a regular threat. Filppula is the biggest bright spot from this group, as his fantastic speed and hockey sense just needs a bit more a finishing touch in order to cement his place alongside Datsyuk in the future.

If Lang, Bertuzzi, and Calder all leave, the Wings will need a physical winger, a playmaking center for the second line, and another “project” like Cleary, Draper, or Maltby for the fourth line. Let’s hope these things happen.

Defense: I’d argue that the Wings would have won the Anaheim series if not for the injuries to Mathieu Schneider and Niklas Kronwall, since having to play Andreas Lilja and Kyle Quincey on a regular shift allowed the Ducks to dominate the offensive zone. Lilja single-handedly gave away game five—yes, with a bouncing puck, but one that should have been dumped off to the far boards, not through Andy McDonald. He’s still under contract for 2007–2008 if TSN is correct, so hopefully he’ll be pushed to the seventh defenseman. Quincey showed his youth a bit too much, but played quite well in game six, making some nice plays in the offensive zone. He’ll make a solid bottom-pair defenseman after another year of seasoning. Schneider’s loss was enormous. Not only is he a key component of the power play, he makes the smart play almost every time is excellent at the first pass out of the zone. He may not be getting younger, but re-signing him is crucial. I would have liked to see Kronwall play more this season, since he reminds me of a baby Lidstrom, but his injury problems have prevented that from happening. Five years and fifteen million may seem like a bit much for a guy with such a propensity for breaking bones, but if he can stay on the ice for a full season he should emerge as a solid top-four blueliner.

The other four defensemen—Niklas Lidstrom, Chris Chelios, Brett Lebda and Denny Markov—all played well. Lidstrom is a model of consistency who shows no signs of aging, even at 37. Chelios may be a grizzled old man at forty-five years of age, but there’s no justifiable reason to call for his retirement. He still outsmarts opponents, plays with a physical edge, and makes the right pass. Lebda has emerged as a solid offensive defenseman for the second or third pair and the power play unit. Markov is a UFA, which means he may not be back given the growing logjam on the blueline, but he played well throughout the playoffs and added a physical edge that the team typically lacks. Unless he wants a ton of money, it would be wise to keep him and dump Lilja.

Goalies: Dominik Hasek may be rightly maligned for being borderline insane, but I’ll be damned if I expected him to play much better than he did in this year’s playoffs. Yes, he allowed some poor goals along the way, but also made some critical saves that Manny Legace and Chris Osgood might not have. Signing him to a cheap one-year deal was a calculated risk that paid off. Osgood thankfully did not have to fill in for a Hasek meltdown, so I don’t have anything to say about his postseason performance as that guy on the bench who was wearing a jersey without a helmet.

As for the future, I’d love nothing more than the salary cap to increase enough that the Wings could sign Giguere to solidify their future net needs, but I just don’t think that’ll happen. Minnesota’s Niklas Backstrom is the only other viable starter on the market (sorry Crazy Ed Belfour), so teams are likely to overpay for Giguere and Backstrom, leaving the Wings in the lurch. I’d like to see Hasek come back and split time with Jimmy Howard so the Wings can find out if Howard’ll make it as a starter in 2008, but I don’t think Hasek will play for his low base salary from this year. It’ll be a tricky off-season for Ken Holland in the goaltending department, but I didn’t think that the Hasek/Osgood pairing would get the Wings to the conference finals, so who knows.