It’s been a very, very long day and going into a very, very long Thursday night here at Providence Hospital.
Aunt Annie is doing OK. She’s had a high pain day, and we’re still trying to rectify her UTI, so we’re in process, not necessarily making progress some two days into what will probably be a 3-to-4 day stay.
So I’m gonna vent for a moment.
Seeing Dylan Larkin skating in Red Wings gear on today’s Power Edge Pro Instagram story does not mean that he’s considering returning to Detroit. It means that he’s got a Wings practice jersey, pants and gloves around because that’s what’s in his equipment bag.
Just like Dylan Larkin’s Celebrity Family Feud appearance went, it’s a mixed bag. Or ribbon.
Patrick Kane heading back to Chicago does not make the Red Wings needing to trade Alex DeBrincat, Justin Faulk and then somehow let Simon Edvinsson walk if he’s offer sheeted all one big “fait accompli” (i.e. an inevitability).
DeBrincat is still under contract for the upcoming season, and it’s up to him, not us, whether he chooses to ask for a trade prior to next year’s trade deadline;
We have no idea what Justin Faulk’s thinking because nobody’s asked him what his intentions might be;
And the Red Wings have enough salary cap space to both re-sign Edvinsson and to stave off any offer sheet;
We also do not know what’s going to happen to Todd McLellan if and/or when a new general manager is hired…
We do not know whether the fact that there’s no news on the GM search is good or bad news because the Red Wings aren’t going to update us on the process until it’s finished (the Red Wings’ front office just “didn’t talk to the media” long before Steve Yzerman was in charge), and it’s July 24th.
There’s no more or less urgency to rectify these situations than there was last week at this time. It’s important that the Red Wings get their front office sorted out ASAP, and the sooner Simon Edvinsson is re-signed, the better…
And the sooner that the Red Wings determine whether they’re going to go after an unrestricted free agent (Eeli Tolvanen?) to replace Patrick Kane’s production would be better, too…
Things move slowly at this time of year–until they do not, as the Patrick Kane situation revealed on Thursday–and so we are all at the mercy of the news cycle and the Tweets/blog posts/sports talk radio “hits” of those desperate to generate headlines and “clicks” right now.
Finally, for what it’s worth, seeing Patrick Kane leave Detroit to return to Chicago disappointed me as someone who was holding out hope that Detroit offered him something, anything, to stay…
But did not surprise me given that he’s a “Blackhawk for life,” or that the Hawks offered him $8 million a year for 2 years to come–which is a salary structure that just doesn’t make sense for the Red Wings to offer a 60-point-guy at this point in time.
So I’ll keep taking care of the aunt and keep scrolling through Google email alerts and Tweets and stupid stories that I’m not posting because they’re not worth your time or mine…For the sake of trying to continue to build a blog whose posts are worth your time. 99% of the time, anyway.
It’s been a long day. Goodnight.
