Red Wings Acquire Veteran Centre

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HFNHL Red Wings

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In a surprise news statement today GM Niece announced that the Wings have acquired Veteran forward Martin Straka from the Atlanta Thrashers. At first this appeared to be a a reversal of direction for the Wings but HDN made it clear this was a move for next year.
“In the cases of veterans Bill Guerin and Olaf Kolzig we had players capable of stepping up for next year and were comfortable in our overall team depth at the position. However, when it comes to having top end playmaking skill sets the team felt that the 2006/07 season could be a transition year in this area and Strake was acquired to address that short term gap.â€
Asked if that meant that Jozef Stumpel would be traded GM Niece replied “Noâ€. “While we will always look to improve our team and there may be offers made for Mr. Stumpel’s services that the team would consider, there is no immediate plans trade him [Stumpel]. Jozef Stumpel has been with our organization for 5 years and has performed admirable as our number one center for as long. He has a year remaining on his contract and he will be given every opportunity to retain his role.â€

In return the Wings sent a package of prospects, players and picks. Headed south is promising checking center Dominic Moore, up and coming defensive defenceman Max Kondratiev, St. Louis’ 3rd round pick this year, veteran center Wes Walz, and veteran offensive defenceman Jamie Heward. In the short term the most impactful loss is Wes Walz who’s two way play this year has made meaningful contributions to the teams surprising level of success.
While the team did not like trading such promising young players like Moore and Kondratiev they were both caught in a numbers game where there were multiple players in the system that brought a similar skill set. In Atlanta these players will get the time to play and develop they may not have had in Detroit.

GM Niece is excited about this teams potential in 2006/07. Not only does the team have some exciting new faces waiting to showcase their skills at the HFNHL level but there is more HFNHL players at about every position than there are available spots. This should not only produce a strong level of competition at training camp but will give the team the flexibility to mix up their playing style depending on the opponent.

Projected depth chart for 2006/07 (no particular order and some players shown at multiple positions):
LW – Jere Lehtinen, Jussi Jokinen, Antti Miettinen, Todd White, Martin Straka, Chris Kunitz, Gary Roberts
C – Martin Straka, Jozef Stumpel, Brad Boyes, Kris Draper, Jay McClement, Curtis Brown
RW – Mike Knuble, Mark Parrish, Jozef Stumpel, Trent Hunter, Antti Miettinen, Chris Clark, Jere Lehtinen
Total - 16 qualified forwards competing for 12 spots

D – Nicklas Lidstrom, Marek Malik, Rhett Warrener, Brent Sopel, Mike Van Ryn, Cory Sarich, Jiri fischer, Denis Wideman, Staffan Kronwall, Jay Harrison
G – Henrik Lundqvist, Jussi Markkanen, Antero Niitymaki
 
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