A couple of days ago, local sports media was running with this idea that Pavel Datsyuk was going to return to Red Wings based on some comments his agent Dan Milstein made to Russia’s Match TV.
Via the Detroit News:
“I can tell you Pavel is not ready to quit hockey in (the) next few years,” Milstein told the television network. “So again, it’s up to him, going to America or playing in KHL.”
“He will have a lot of options if he decides to return to the NHL,” Milstein told the Russian network. “But it’d be appropriate to return to Detroit where he spent all of his North American career.
“Though it’s up to Datsyuk. Will he want to make this comeback?”
Those quotes seemingly made Dave Bartkowiak Jr. of WDIV.com cream in his pants at the idea of Datsyuk making a return to the NHL while WDIV.com editors ran with the headline “Datsyuk’s agent: Return to NHL not ruled out, would have to be with Red Wings”.
Meanwhile Milstein called the Google translations of his comments to be “blown out of proportion” as it was apparent he was trying to quell some of what the media in North America was ultimately running with.
But, lets say Datsyuk is seriously considering a return to the NHL, which I believe has crossed his mind at some point since fucking over the Red Wings in the summer of 2016. I also believe if he ultimately decided to make a return to the NHL it would only be with Detroit. Needless to say I’m sure along with Dave Bartkowiak there will still be plenty of Wings fans around the area scrambling to Kohls to purchase new underwear.
However I’ll make my plea right now to not only Datsyuk but to the Red Wings as well.
Datsyuk please, please, please don’t come back to the Red Wings. And to whomever is running the Detroit front office if and when Datsyuk decides he wants to make a return, I beg you don’t give in to his wishes.
The Red Wings are a much different team than they were when we last left off with Datsyuk at the end of 2015-16. They’re younger, they’re rebuilding and quite frankly have now room on their roster for a guy who spurned them three years ago. I mean are the Wings seriously gong to considering putting a 40-plus year old Datsyuk on the third line and have him be okay with that? Lets not kid ourselves, the “Magic Man” I’m sure will have every intention of being a top six forward and I certainly don’t trust the Red Wings to push back on those demands. Especially if Ken Holland is still running the show because lets not forget his initial stance of not wanting to trade Datsyuk’s contract even after he made his way to the KHL.
Not to mention who would lose playing time just so Datsyuk could get his nightly minutes?
Is Dylan Larkin, Anthony Mantha or Andreas Athanasiou going to have to sacrifice minutes to appease a 41-year-old Datsyuk? What about Tyler Bertuzzi or Michael Rasmussen? Or how about delaying the NHL debut of Filip Zadina just so we can re-live some nostalgia with No. 13?
All of this just seems absurd, and we’re not even considering what kind of money he’ll be looking for if he decides to return.
Datsyuk was making $7.5 million per season when he chose to return to Russia with one-year left on his contract with Detroit. The Red Wings eventually traded his rights to Arizona who’ll own them until July 1, 2019.
