The earlier speculation about an impending Kris Draper retirement announcement turned out to be correct. MLive's Ansar Khan reports that Draper is in fact holding a news conference on Tuesday. It will begin at 11 a.m. and take place at Joe Louis Arena, and Draper is going to announce his retirement.
When Draper retires, he will be the third Red Wings player to hang up his skates this offseason and the fourth in the last year or so. Already this offseason Brian Rafalski and Chris Osgood have retired, and last year Kirk Maltby retired. Now Draper will be the latest Red Wing to call it a career.
Like Maltby, Draper is retiring because there wasn't room on the roster for him. Maltby actually went to training camp to compete for a spot and retired after not making the team. Draper didn't want to go through that and is going to retire now rather than after competing for a spot during camp.
The disappointing thing is that Draper could still play, but with the way the roster is right now, there just isn't room for him.