WTFchris
07-23-2009, 06:47 PM
Red Wings VP Jimmy Devellano gave an absolutely fantastic, 21-plus-minute interview to The Fan 590's (http://www.fan590.com/ondemand/media.jsp?content=20090723_002203_5976) Roger Lajoie last night, touching upon the Red Wings' free agent losses, the Jiri Hudler mess (and the KHL's long-term viability), Detroit's cap-bending long-term deals, the Wings' desire to expand their regional footprint into Northwestern Ohio and Southwestern Ontario, the NHL Premiere 2009-2010 games in Sweden as a thank-you to Nicklas Lidstrom, and even his take on the Detroit Tigers as he's also a member of their management team.
He leads off with a whopper:
July 23, Fan 590 (http://www.fan590.com/ondemand/media.jsp?content=20090723_002203_5976):
Roger Lajoie: Let's talk about your hockey club, though, off the top. The last couple of off-seasons have been very exciting for you, you've made significant additions, in fact, you want to go back to the last five or six off-seasons, way back to getting Cujo, you've always been an active buyer, and I think that was the intent this year, and while the team is still, I think, in incredibly good shape, it's a good hockey club, you had some losses this off-season. Talk to us about that.
Jimmy Devellano: Well, Roger, it sure has been a different off-season, you know...I think the salary cap has finally caught up to my hockey team, the Detroit Red Wings. When Marian Hossa signed with us last year, you know, it was pretty evident to us, Ken Holland and our staff, that it was probably unlikely we would be able to sign him long-term. We kind of knew that going in. He's a good hckey player, he's a player who commands over $7 million, but he chose to come to our team, and he gave us a wonderful year, as you know, Roger, 40 goals in the regular season, so...
Certainly we'd do it all over again, and he was a fine guy, by the way. But we knew that, in order for us to keep him, we would have to let three or four top forwards go to fit him in. That didn't make sense. Well, it's a funny thing, the way things happen; we lose Marian Hossa, unfortunately, right in the division, to Chicago, but then...
The thing we wanted to try to avoid, but couldn't avoid, Mikael Samuelsson signs with Vancouver. Chris Chelios retired. We knew that he would retire, it was time. Um, we let Kopecky go, he also signed with Chicago, that was not a problem; he could be replaced by another younger player.
But the curve ball thrown at us was Jiri Hudler being signed by the Russian team, and why it was a curve ball was, uh, he was a restricted free agent, we were negotiating with his agent, he filed for arbitration, so...All appearances were that Jiri Hudler would come back.
Now it's a little bit gray as to whether he will be back. He might be, he might not be. The problem then becomes, if you wait to find out, uh, and he leaves, you've got quite a bit of money under the cap, but then the free agents are all eaten up, for any of the good ones that might be left.
Lajoie: Sure, you've got to make a call here.
Devellano: If you sign him and he does come back, then we don't really have any money under the cap, so Ken Holland and I, along with our owner, Mr. Ilitch, have been talking about it on a daily basis, and we kind of really need to get to work here in the next little while, and try to figure it out.
Roger, up front, we've lost 82 goals, between Samuelsson, Hudler, and Hossa, we've lost 82 goals. There aren't many hockey teams that can afford that, us included, so we're a little bit, um, concerned, to put it mildly, but we're going to try to be active and try to get it at least half figured out, but, Roger, the salary cap has caught up to us.
Lajoie: Yeah, every team faces it for sure, at some point, Jimmy, for sure, NHL by the way, announced tonight that the NHL's scheduled an arbitration hearing for July 30th for Jiri Hudler's situation, and, that's important, too, because you've got to maintain NHL rights, there's a lot of legalities that go on in these kinds of cases.
Devellano: Well, the thing is that we're trying to sign him; we'll take the arbitrator's award, I doubt that we would walk away unless it was such a ridiculous award, Roger, and what that would do, having talked to the league, is...Whenever, and if, in fact, he was finished in Russia, he would owe the Detroit Red Wings two years at the agreed-upon salary.
We like the boy, he's a nice young man, he had no trouble with us, we had no trouble with him, but the Moscow Dynamo team offered him an unbelievable contract, $5 million a year for two years, and they pay very little taxes over there, Roger, and, you know, we're just not able to compete with that kind of salary.
You know, he's a 23-goal-scorer.
audio here (http://blog.mlive.com/snapshots/2009/07/jimmy_devellano_on_fan_590_red.html)
He leads off with a whopper:
July 23, Fan 590 (http://www.fan590.com/ondemand/media.jsp?content=20090723_002203_5976):
Roger Lajoie: Let's talk about your hockey club, though, off the top. The last couple of off-seasons have been very exciting for you, you've made significant additions, in fact, you want to go back to the last five or six off-seasons, way back to getting Cujo, you've always been an active buyer, and I think that was the intent this year, and while the team is still, I think, in incredibly good shape, it's a good hockey club, you had some losses this off-season. Talk to us about that.
Jimmy Devellano: Well, Roger, it sure has been a different off-season, you know...I think the salary cap has finally caught up to my hockey team, the Detroit Red Wings. When Marian Hossa signed with us last year, you know, it was pretty evident to us, Ken Holland and our staff, that it was probably unlikely we would be able to sign him long-term. We kind of knew that going in. He's a good hckey player, he's a player who commands over $7 million, but he chose to come to our team, and he gave us a wonderful year, as you know, Roger, 40 goals in the regular season, so...
Certainly we'd do it all over again, and he was a fine guy, by the way. But we knew that, in order for us to keep him, we would have to let three or four top forwards go to fit him in. That didn't make sense. Well, it's a funny thing, the way things happen; we lose Marian Hossa, unfortunately, right in the division, to Chicago, but then...
The thing we wanted to try to avoid, but couldn't avoid, Mikael Samuelsson signs with Vancouver. Chris Chelios retired. We knew that he would retire, it was time. Um, we let Kopecky go, he also signed with Chicago, that was not a problem; he could be replaced by another younger player.
But the curve ball thrown at us was Jiri Hudler being signed by the Russian team, and why it was a curve ball was, uh, he was a restricted free agent, we were negotiating with his agent, he filed for arbitration, so...All appearances were that Jiri Hudler would come back.
Now it's a little bit gray as to whether he will be back. He might be, he might not be. The problem then becomes, if you wait to find out, uh, and he leaves, you've got quite a bit of money under the cap, but then the free agents are all eaten up, for any of the good ones that might be left.
Lajoie: Sure, you've got to make a call here.
Devellano: If you sign him and he does come back, then we don't really have any money under the cap, so Ken Holland and I, along with our owner, Mr. Ilitch, have been talking about it on a daily basis, and we kind of really need to get to work here in the next little while, and try to figure it out.
Roger, up front, we've lost 82 goals, between Samuelsson, Hudler, and Hossa, we've lost 82 goals. There aren't many hockey teams that can afford that, us included, so we're a little bit, um, concerned, to put it mildly, but we're going to try to be active and try to get it at least half figured out, but, Roger, the salary cap has caught up to us.
Lajoie: Yeah, every team faces it for sure, at some point, Jimmy, for sure, NHL by the way, announced tonight that the NHL's scheduled an arbitration hearing for July 30th for Jiri Hudler's situation, and, that's important, too, because you've got to maintain NHL rights, there's a lot of legalities that go on in these kinds of cases.
Devellano: Well, the thing is that we're trying to sign him; we'll take the arbitrator's award, I doubt that we would walk away unless it was such a ridiculous award, Roger, and what that would do, having talked to the league, is...Whenever, and if, in fact, he was finished in Russia, he would owe the Detroit Red Wings two years at the agreed-upon salary.
We like the boy, he's a nice young man, he had no trouble with us, we had no trouble with him, but the Moscow Dynamo team offered him an unbelievable contract, $5 million a year for two years, and they pay very little taxes over there, Roger, and, you know, we're just not able to compete with that kind of salary.
You know, he's a 23-goal-scorer.
audio here (http://blog.mlive.com/snapshots/2009/07/jimmy_devellano_on_fan_590_red.html)