Prospective Look at Detroit

In the age of the salary cap and CBA, the Detroit Red Wings will remain the marvel of the era. After winning the Cup on Wednesday night, the team can look forward to another season with the bulk of their core, including captain Nicklas Lidstrom and Conn Smythe Trophy winner, Henrik Zetterberg, already in the mix. Let's see, they'll also have their starting goalie for the playoffs, Chris Osgood, top scorer during the year, Pavel Datsyuk, heavy-hitter, Niklas Kronvall, and the human screen, Tomas Holmstrom. The team doesn't look any less scary now than it did on Wednesday night.

Oh wait... yes it does. The team has all sorts of room underneath the cap going forward, thanks to some good timing and great budgeting. The list of players signed on and ready for next season in the table below is only valued at $39.6 million against the cap.

Forwards	Defense	Goaltenders
Pavel Datsyuk	Nicklas Lidstrom	Chris Osgood
Henrik Zetterberg	Brian Rafalski
Daniel Cleary	Niklas Kronvall
Jiri Hudler	Brett Lebda
Tomas Holmstrom
Mikael Samuelsson
Johan Franzen
Kris Draper
Tomas Kopecky
Kirk Maltby
Darren Helm

That's right, all of that for $39.6 million against the cap. Of course, that bubble will burst next summer with Zetterberg, Hudler, Samuelsson, Franzen and Kopecky all having contract years. This summer, however, the team can play with some cap space on some longer term deals with restricted free agent Valtteri Filppula and some short-term deals on unrestricted free agents Brad Stuart and Andreas Lilja. The age consideration has be taken into effect for Dominik Hasek, Chris Chelios and Dallas Drake when it comes to re-signing. The three have just won the Cup and will probably take some time to decide whether or not they are even coming back. It is likely that Chelios will return to Detroit for another season, but I'm sure fans won't be disappointed if he didn't.

With all of this cap space, they can fill some gaps that could be left behind by players and it could very well be for the better. With their superstars already locked up, they should be shopping for some key depth players to be responsible for their smaller amounts of ice-time, while the big guns catch their breath.

Come Draft Day, the Red Wings will ponder some serious options and they'll get to pick from the 30th position in the first round. Since their team isn't really known for it's early draft picks, the team will likely go for the best available player, unless a good deal comes around for a key player that could join their line-up right away. The Wings will more than likely use their selection to add some youth to the stable and let their keen eye for free agents do all the talking after July 1st.