That's It For Zetterberg

The fears of the Detroit Red Wings organization have come to fruition, as their captain, Henrik Zetterberg, has officially shut himself down permanently, due to a degenerative back injury, team management announced on Friday.

The 37-year old played in 15 NHL seasons, all with the Red Wings, playing in 1,082 regular season games, finishing with 337 goals and 960 points in his career.

In the last three seasons, Zetterberg was able to play in all 82 games, after suffering a back injury in the 2015 season, but he had been playing through the pain over the last few seasons.

There was thought that he would be able to continue at some point this season, with enough rehab, but that didn't pan out to be the case for him or the team and it was likely best to call it a career.  Now, you can strike him from your projection list and scratch him off the Hockey News' list as well, where they have him at 55 points this year.

This injury news will certainly work to expedite the rebuild process in Detroit, as they place him on the Long Term Injured Reserve this season and likely next season as well, the last two years of his current contract, which carries a cap hit just over $6 million.  He'll join Johan Franzen on the list of players that have had their career cut short, due to injury, with years left on their deal.  Both players will run that total up to around $10 million in cap relief.

Maybe most remarkably, in the 11 seasons of running the hockey pool on the website, Zetterberg has never appeared on a money-winning team.