The Red Wings added a little bit more depth to their defense with the signing of Ian White on Saturday. White signed a 2-year deal, valued at $5.75 million, a $2.875 million cap hit per season. White joins Mike Commodore as brand new additions to the Red Wings blueline, replacing names like Brian Rafalski and Ruslan Salei.
White bounced around a couple of times in the 2011 season, trying to be a fit wherever he landed. He started the season in Calgary, was dealt to Carolina and then dealt again at the deadline to San Jose, where he helped the Sharks make it to the Conference Finals again. In the regular season, White played in 78 games, scored 4 goals and added 22 assists for 26 points, ranking him 63rd among all blueliners.No one defenseman is necessarily going to replace a player like Rafalski, but White should provide some quality minutes, if not replacing all the scoring they were used to with him.
| Forwards | Defense | Goalies |
| Henrik Zetterberg | Nicklas Lidstrom | Jimmy Howard |
| Pavel Datsyuk | Niklas Kronwall | |
| Johan Franzen | Ian White | |
| Dan Cleary | Brad Stuart | |
| Todd Bertuzzi | Jonathan Ericsson | |
| Valtteri Fippula | Mike Commodore | |
| Tomas Holmstrom | Jakub Kindl | |
| Jiri Hudler | ||
| Darren Helm | ||
| Justin Abdelkader | ||
| Drew Miller |
With White on board for the coming season, I currently have the Red Wings sitting in great cap shape, 20 players (12 forwards, seven defense and a starting goalie) for $56.2 million. The Red Wings also have plenty of youth to fill in some of those remaining spots, like Thomas McCollum to back up Howard and/or Tomas Tatar in the 13th forward spot. With their defense sorted out, I don't see the Red Wings being too active for the rest of the off-season.
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