The Detroit Red Wings desire to add another defenseman has been well documented this summer, and according to Brendan Savage of Mlive.com the team has offered free agent Carlo Colaiacovo a two-year contract.
According to the report the offer is for around $2.5 million per season.
Colaiacovo spent the past four seasons as a member of the St. Louis Blues and is coming off a 2011-12 performance that saw him score two goals to go with 17 points in 19 games. Not exactly numbers that jump off the page, but he played a lot of minutes (some tough minutes, too) and spent much of the season playing on the Blues top defensive pairing alongside Alex Pietrangelo.
He's a good player, and it's a little surprising he hasn't been signed by somebody at this point, but there are a couple of potential red flags to consider. For one, he's appeared in more than 70 games in a season just once in his NHL career, and his play also saw a significant drop last year when he wasn't on the ice with Pietrangelo. And if he ends up going to Detroit he's probably not going to be playing next to a defenseman with that sort of ability.
The Red Wings defense has some pretty glaring holes right now after the retirement of future Hall of Fame Nicklas Lidstrom and the loss of Brad Stuart as he returned to San Jose this summer. Last summer the Red Wings lost Brian Rafalski to retirement.
The Red Wings are currently looking at a unit that is made up of Niklas Kronwall, Jonathan Ericsson, Ian White, Kyle Quincey, Jakub Kindl and Brendan Smith. That's a long way down from the group that was playing for Stanley Cups just three years ago.
Along with the reported offer to Colaiacovo the Red Wings have also been mentioned in trade rumors involving Calgary's Jay Bouwmeester and Phoenix's Keith Yandle.
They tried to sign former Nashville Predators defenseman Ryan Suter but lost out on him when he signed with the Minnesota Wild.
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