2012 Projections: Detroit

The Red Wings should continue to be a poolie favourite on draft day, as their experience and system should prove to be productive again in the 2012 season, despite some aging concerns and some more concerns about adding some new faces to the mix.

Yes, the Red Wings continue to age, as the players above the line below come in at the highest average age among all NHL teams.  If they are able to add some of their young prospects to the mix in the coming year, they should fall down the list a little, as they are being tailed quite closely by a couple other teams.

With age does come some risk of health issues, but as long as the Red Wings' top players get to play 75 or more games a piece, the team is structured well enough to win plenty of games this year and scoring should be plentiful.

Forwards		Defense		Goalies
Pavel Datsyuk	85	Nicklas Lidstrom	55	Jimmy Howard	75
Henrik Zetterberg	75	Niklas Kronwall	35	Ty Conklin	25
Johan Franzen	55	Ian White	30
Todd Bertuzzi	50	Brad Stuart	20
Valtteri Filppula	45	Mike Commodore	20
Dan Cleary	40	Jonathan Ericsson	15
Tomas Holmstrom	40	Jakub Kindl	10
Jiri Hudler	35
Darren Helm	35
Patrick Eaves	25
Drew Miller	20
Justin Abdelkader	15
Chris Conner	15
Cory Emmerton	25	Brendan Smith	20	Joey MacDonald	10
Tomas Tatar	20
Jan Mursak	15

Pool Worthy Forwards (Inside the top 160, 35 points)
The Datsyuk-Zetterberg connection is considered to be one of the better duos in the league, one that almost guarantees production on a nightly basis.  There is no reason for this to change, Datsyuk is too flashy and Zetterberg works too hard for other teams to stop them frequently.  Franzen, Bertuzzi, Cleary and Holmstrom have that power forward sense and the Wings' coaching staff will use the hot hand with their top duo, which means the offense may spread out over the schedule, while we're all still waiting for Filppula to break out and put some points up.

The bottom six should see some points, especially with the system the team uses for transitional offense, Helm and Eaves may look really good this season, bringing some real speed to the team's third line.

Pool Worthy Defensemen (Inside the top 80, 20 points)
The Red Wings defense scoring will rely heavily on how much ice-time is divvied out to all of these veterans.  Nicklas Lidstrom and Niklas Kronwall will command the blueline for the better part of the season, but new additions Ian White and Mike Commodore will have some work to do to prove they deserve the extra ice-time.  If they all can pick up all the necessary minutes, the Detroit blueline could be bountiful for pool points.

Pool Worthy Goalies (Inside the top 40, 25 points)
I think the jury may still be out on whether or not Jimmy Howard is going to work out to be the workhorse that the Red Wings might be looking for.  The goaltender management has been good over the past couple of seasons, spreading out the ice-time, not to burn out their number one guy, which should be reflected in his numbers, where I think 75 points is very reasonable for him.  Also, when you spread the minutes and the starts, that means the back-up goalies turn into viable late round picks, in this case, the nod goes to Ty Conklin, who should put up 25 points behind Howard.

Pool Worthy Rookies
I've got my eye on Cory Emmerton and Brendan Smith going into this coming season, where I think if they both can find a spot on the team, they will both likely be good pick-ups in the late round positions.  Emmerton may figure into a third line role, but Smith has been touted as having plenty of potential to jump into the top four and possibly get some power play time.  It may be veterans there by default to start the year, but Smith may turn some heads.

Unsigned Players
None.

Key Injuries
None.