Because our team sucks and Niklas Kronwall is literally the best cost/production add we could make on our back end that won’t affect us going forward in the rebuild. If they were to add a D, I’d rather it be a healthy Kronwall on a one year deal at like 2M than Jake Gardiner for term and 6M+
Maybe “farewell tour” was strong language. But all of those guys played until their bodies fell apart and beyond (Yzerman, Z), pushed their way out of Detroit (Datsyuk), or basically had like a three year period where they went year to year and it was clear it was coming to an end (Lidstrom).
And frankly for Stevie and Nick, the Wings were still favorites or contenders for Cups at those points. A lot less room for sentimentality at that point.
Niklas Kronwall sucked last year.
On the Red Wings defense:
Points/60 - behind Green, Hronek, Dekeyser and Jensen
In CF%: Behind Jensen, Hronek, Cholowski, and Green.
In GF%: Behind Dekeyser, Jensen and Green. Still a big minus.
And this is despite the fact that nobody but Cholowski had easier zone deployment.
On the PP? Kronwall was 3rd out of the 4 D used on the PP in points/60.
He played more minutes than any other defenseman on a really bad powerplay.
On the PK, he and Dekeyser had the Worst GA/60 at 10.5/60.
Ericsson was at 6.3, for example. Jensen at 6.1.
Anecdotally, at times Kronwall looked decent last year. But he also made a lot of embarrassing gaffes.
Truthfully, you could pull in just about any defenseman in the NHL and some of these numbers.
Time to move in a new direction.
Besides, I start feeling bad for him having to answer for the shitty performances, night in and night out.
