The Detroit Red Wings, along with several other teams, made it known on the first day of NHL free agency that they want both Ryan Suter and Zach Parise on their team. Just how bad do the Red Wings want to land the top two free agents on the open market? They opened up their checkbook in a big way. While it isn't known what the Red Wings offered Parise, MLive's Ansar Khan reports that Suter's offer is for $90 million over 12 years.
Loaded with cap space, it probably shouldn't be too surprising that the Red Wings' offer is reportedly so large. Then again, it's not often you see deals like this tossed around. Henrik Zetterberg's 12-year deal is worth a total of "only" $73 million, for example. Contracts have clearly been inflated since then, but part of me was a bit worried that the Red Wings would be hesitant to make such a large offer to Suter.
While it remains to be seen if Suter will in fact accept Detroit's offer, they have made it clear that they are pulling out all the stops to sign him. With Nicklas Lidstrom retiring, one era has come to an end for the Red Wings, and clearly they want Suter to begin a new era as the cornerstone of their defense going forward.
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