While there has been a lot of contradictory information about the Detroit Red Wings' plans to meet with free agents Ryan Suter and Zach Parise, one piece of news has been confirmed by general manager Ken Holland. Specifically, Holland confirmed to the Free Press' Helene St. James that the Red Wings have submitted contract offers to both Suter and Parise. This should come as no surprise, of course, but this news has now been confirmed.
Confirmation that offers have gone out to Suter and Parise came after there were various reports in the last hour that contradicted each other. Mainly, there was a lot of differing info on Parise and the Red Wings' plans to meet with him. At one point, there was a report that the Red Wings had a meeting scheduled with Parise. Then, Pierre LeBrun reported that the meeting was off despite the fact that Red Wings head coach Mike Babcock was already in Toronto for the meeting.
It turns out the confusion was a result of Parise's agent canceling all in-person meetings due to the ridiculous amount of interest in his client. MLive's Ansar Khan has more on this:
But Parise's agent, Don Meehan, called them and said he has canceled all meetings because more than 20 clubs have asked to see him and he can't possibly accommodate everybody.
Meehan told teams to submit their best offer by phone, and the Red Wings have submitted a big one. Parise will consider all the offers.
According to St. James, Babcock is now headed home from Toronto after not meeting with anybody. At the start of the day, it seemed like the Red Wings would be having in-person meetings with both Parise and Suter, but in the end neither player is hosting meetings for the time being. Perhaps this will change once the two players narrow down the list of teams they are interested in.
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