Zetterberg Signed Long-Term

Well, the Detroit free-agent summer workload has been diminished by one this afternoon as the Red Wings announced that they have signed Henrik Zetterberg to a brand new contract extension, which is the richest in Red Wings club history. Zetterberg signed a 12-year, $72 million contract extension, which will have him play through the 2020/'21 season, which would likely near the end of his career at 40 years old.

This contract extension means a big raise from his $2.65 million cap hit that he provided the Wings this year, but there is every indication that this will be money well spent. In terms of pool scoring, Zetterberg has been a top 100 player in the last five seasons, including this one, and finished 9th in pool scoring last season. He also was nominated for the Selke Trophy in the off-season as one of the best defensive forwards in the game, so he is one of the best two-way forwards in the league. At $6 million against the cap for that kind of player, the Red Wings are getting a bargain to continue winning.

Forwards	Defense	Goaltenders
Pavel Datsyuk	Nicklas Lidstrom	Chris Osgood
Henrik Zetterberg	Brian Rafalski	Jimmy Howard
Tomas Holmstrom	Niklas Kronwall
Dan Cleary	Brett Lebda
Valtteri Filppula	Andreas Lilja
Kirk Maltby	Brad Stuart
Kris Draper	Derek Meech

Now, the inclusion of Jimmy Howard and Derek Meech are maybe a little too ambitious at this point, but to put the roster in some perspective I have included them. This roster above, missing out on six forwards, will have a salary cap hit of $47.9 million, which doesn't likely leave them with much money to sign some of their key free agents in the summer. This is certainly an issue that was forseen this past summer and it will be rather interesting to see what the team will do with forwards like Marian Hossa, Johan Franzen, Mikael Samuelsson and Jiri Hudler.

Next season will likely be a big year for players like Justin Abdelkader, Jonathan Ericsson and Jakub Kindl, who will likely force the hand of management to move some of their larger salaried veterans to make room for more mediocre depth players.