When an unexpected 37 year old 11 year veteran Brian Rafalski announced he was hanging up his skates the other day, Nick Lidstrom's future still remains in question and if he does decide to call it a career, the defense could even have huge holes if veteran Ruslan Salei and fellow swedish defense Jonathan Ericsson leave via free agency.
On the forwards, Mike Modano who only spent one season and shutdown center Kris Draper are upcoming free agents and there futures still remain unclear. If both forwards decide to retire, it will not make that big a difference since their core of Johan Franzen, Henrik Zetterberg and Pavel Datsyuk is still in tact and with aging power forward Tomas Holmstrom still signed for another year but will it be his last year?
In the end, the Detroit Red Wings will still be one of the best teams in the West because of their superb depth that General Manager Ken Holland brings in and the superb drafting primarly getting the best european players from Director of European Scouting Hakan Andersson.
