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Detroit’s summer of free agency missed opportunities

Ryan Suter, Zach Parise

The Red Wings headed into free agency with oodles of salary cap space and tons of cash to spend. They set their sights high thinking they could pull off the daily double landing both Zach Parise and Ryan Suter. Instead, it was the Minnesota Wild who pulled off the feat thanks to their desire to play at home and leading to columnists declaring that Detroit were no longer the chosen ones in the NHL.

With all that money and a need to add a scorer and a blue liner, the Red Wings then missed out on Matt Carle who landed in Tampa Bay with Steve Yzerman. Detroit even missed out on getting in the Shea Weber derby thanks to Philly’s offer sheet but were believed to be investigating a possible trade. Hoo boy.

Instead of addressing needs they went in a different direction adding agitator Jordin Tootoo and bringing back Mikael Samuelsson, two not-so headliners. Is that enough? Not hardly. Sure they’ve still got Pavel Datsyuk, Henrik Zetterberg, Jimmy Howard, and Niklas Kronwall and those are great players to have, but they fell short in the playoffs last year and that was when they had Nicklas Lidstrom and Brad Stuart. They’re both gone and Detroit’s free agent whiffs stand out even more.

GM Ken Holland says he’d rather go with his kids and unless Detroit works out a deal with Alexander Semin or Shane Doan, that’s just what they’ll have to do. Are guys like Gustav Nyqvist, Brendan Smith, Jakub Kindl, and Tomas Tatar ready to be prime time players? Holland and the Wings faithful will have to hope so.