Hossa Lands in Detroit

Ka-blammo! The bomb has been dropped and the Detroit Red Wings are preparing themselves to lay down the gauntlet to all comers this season with the acquisition of Marian Hossa for the coming year. Hossa signed a 1-year, $7.4 million deal on Wednesday to join the Stanley Cup champs in hopes that they will repeat as champs.

The addition of Hossa to the Penguins line-up in the Spring was quite the bold move and it almost paid off in full, as the Penguins met the Red Wings in the Finals, but came up short in their attempt to win. This time, Hossa gets to join an already powerful line-up, which has a Cup under their belt. The pressure will be off Hossa to perform at a 50-goal pace, which may encourage him to do it anyways. With help in the form of Datsyuk, Zetterberg and Lidstrom, the team becomes all the more formidable in the offensive zone as they are responsible in the defensive end.

Last season, Hossa finished with 29 goals and 37 assists in 72 games between Atlanta and Pittsburgh. His stock is likely to go up with the promise of a healthy season and great linemates.

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

The numbers are staggering when it comes to the line-up the Red Wings already have in place and then you add a guy like Hossa to the mix. The Wings are now sitting with 20 active players at a cap hit of $52.7 million and they can just as easily add a few more prospects to the line-up without the fear of shaking up the chemistry too much. Not on the list who could make the team this season would include: Logan Pyett, Jakub Kindl or Derek Meech.

The one year signing of Hossa makes absolute sense, since the team will be drowning in unrestricted free agency when it comes to Henrik Zetterberg, Mikael Samuelsson, Johan Franzen and Tomas Kopecky. The summer of 2010 will see Nicklas Lidstrom, Tomas Holmstrom, Brett Lebda, Andreas Lilja and Kirk Maltby. It will be some busy times in Detroit, but GM Ken Holland knows how to piece it together.