I’m a person that is usually pretty short on patience.  The Wings took a major hit when Ryan Suter signed with the Minnesota Wild, he could have played valuable minutes for the Wings and stabilized the blue line.  They were never going to land Zach Parise, because the New Jersey Devils could offer comparable money, and he says that if he didn’t go to the Wild that he would have just stayed put.  Then to make things worse, Steve Yzerman signed Matt Carle down in Tampa Bay, and suddenly options A and B were gone for the Wings.  Thankfully though, Ken Holland does not make any reactionary decisions.  He could have gone out and overpaid for Carle and three years down the road, every Wings fan could have been complaining about how terrible the contract was.

Right now the Wings number one target is Shane Doan, and Doan won’t start listening to offers until Monday, when the Phoenix Coyotes future is closer to a final decision.  I want the Wings to sign Alexander Semin, but apparently the Wings Management are not fans of him and the likelihood that they offer Semin the contract he wants, is slim to none.  It’s alos increasingly likely that the Wings will look to sign a veteran defenseman to a short-term contract, instead of trying to solve future problems.  Carlo Colaiacovo, Milan Jurcina, Pavel Kubina, Cam Barker and Chris Campoli are all options on defense, but if the Wings sign them, I wouldn’t expect much out of any of them.  To make issues on the blue line worse, Kyle Quincey filed for arbitration; this means that an outside party will determine what salary he “deserves.”  Now normally teams could let this player walk if the salary was too ridiculous, but after giving up a 1st rounder for him, there is no chance the Wings do that and they will be stuck with whatever salary that is determined.

If Shane Doan decides to stay in Phoenix, I would look for the Wings to target Rick Nash or Bobby Ryan.  It is also plausible that they could target Nash regardless, but until Columbus’ GM Scott Howson stops acting like the Lollipop King, this will not happen.  There have also been discussions of the Wings making a trade with Phoenix for defenseman Keith Yandle, or with the Calgary Flames for defenseman Jay Bouwmeester, but this will all depend on asking price.  The Wings will not decimate their roster to make a drastic move to acquire a defenseman; which brings me to Shea Weber.

People have talked about Shea Weber ending up in Detroit for a long time now, and ever since Weber played with Nick Lidstrom at the All Star game.  I would love for this to happen more than anybody.  But Weber is a restricted free agent right now and the Wings do not sign restricted free agents to offer sheets.  It is possible now that with Ryan Suter gone, that Shea Weber will say he will never sign a long-term deal with Nashville and so Nashville will be forced to trade him.  But if Shea Weber goes on the block, you can imagine that every single team in the NHL will come make an offer for him, and that Nashville will most definitely try to avoid trading him within the division.  The only way that Weber could end up in Detroit is if he makes it known publicly that the Wings are the only team that he will sign a long-term contract with and thus, eliminate every other team as suitors.

The future for the Wings is definitely up in the air, and it is absolutely tough to be patient, but the only good thing is that Ken Holland will not make drastic decisions or irrational reactionary ones.  Hopefully patience truly proves to be a virtue and the Wings will end up with a steady future.

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