Yes, Chelios was part of the issue, but ultimately the decision came down to Meech or Quincey. I remember Quincey looked OK in 06/07 playoffs (13 games) and somehow (I don't remember why) he wound up in the doghouse the following season and Meech got playing time (32 games) over KFQ (6 games) the following season. KFQ was then waived before the 08 season because Meech supposedly played both forward and defense.
I never really understood the whole deal with being able to play F & D, most of the guys who supposedly can do both suck at both (Big Buf & Burns being exceptions of course). You could put any random PMD as a forward and get more offense than Meech, Witter, etc.
Meech got the playing time in 07/08 because he lost waiver exemption a year before Quincey did and was on the main roster that whole year. Quincey was the first Dman called up from GR when they needed one when Kronwall and Rafalski went down late in the season. Then they lost Lidstrom and Chelios and had to call up Ericsson and Stafford. Ericsson was older and seemed to have passed Quincey on the depth chart in GR and in the NHL. When Stuart came in and Kronwall got healthy, the team opted to keep up Ericsson and send Quincey and Stafford back down.
I do remember that in the 2008 offseason the Red Wings sent Quincey to Aaron Downey's farm to learn how to fight, to add some more edge to his game.
I often wondered if there was off ice/coaching/attitude issues with Quincey that dropped his stock a little. There was the whole Cup ring fiasco (although that might have been his agent?), the stuff that probably shouldn't have been said when he left the Avs, and then his last stop in the NHL where the Wild wanted him to play the right side but he refused and got waived and demoted but was sent home instead of reporting to the AHL team.
Hindsight's certainly 20/20, but it probably would've been better to pat Chelios on the back after that 2008 Cup and offer him a cushy front office job. With Stuart in the fold, Chelios was no longer in the top 6, and the team would've been better suited to give that #7/8D time to Meech/Quincey/Ericsson.
Then again, the loss of Quincey was kind of small potatoes. They had a deal lined up to send him to Dallas, but it fell through when he failed a physical. The other thing was that, like Meech, Quincey was going to have a hard time getting ice time for the foreseeable future. The Wings had their top 6 on D at the time (Lidstrom, Rafalski, Kronwall, Stuart, Lilja, and Lebda) locked up for the next 2 seasons, and Ericsson would be knocking on the door when he lost waiver exemption the next season. If you hypothetically drop Chelios from the 08-09 roster and replace him with Quincey, it's probably still Ericsson that gets a spot on the 3rd pairing when Lilja goes down, while Quincey and Meech stay at #7/8. Quincey probably wouldn't have had the impact he did playing on a lottery Kings D that outside of rookie Doughty would've been questionable at the AHL level... He would've had sheltered minutes when he wasn't in the press box, and could've ended up with the same trajectory as Meech, where he'd get jumped by Ericsson, then be an odd man out when the next guy with some perceived upside loses waiver exemption (Kindl).
The upside to keeping Quincey would've been that they either know that he wasn't worth the trade, or was still around as depth when they decided to move a 1st for him.
As for the D at F thing... Most times that a D gets dressed as a F, it's simply to take 5v5 shifts with the 4th line on wing where they'll be seeing a lot of D zone draws and expected to bring some energy and a physical game as opposed to offense. That's a much better role for a plug on D like Meech or Witkowski (and Babcock did it with Smith at least once, and I think the Rangers were doing that with him quite a bit this past season) than a random PMD.
