Finishing in second place in hockey doesn't mean a whole lot, especially in free agency. Unless you finish as a free agent's top team, where you rank is not really all that important.
Case in point: Ryan Suter said on Wednesday that the Detroit Red Wings "were right there until the end," along with the Nashville Predators. While it's nice to hear that the Red Wings made an impression on him and were in the mix to sign him, he ended up choosing the Minnesota Wild, so it doesn't exactly mean a whole lot. Even so, at least he had nice things to say about the Red Wings:
Ryan Suter: "Detroit is a great franchise. They've got a great thing going there, everybody knows how much success they've had."
— Helene St. James (@HeleneStJames) July 4, 2012
The situation with Zach Parise was quite a bit different. The end result was the same with him signing with the Wild, but the Red Wings weren't one of his finalists. He was down to Minnesota and re-signing with the New Jersey Devils, and Helene St. James reports that the Red Wings "weren't close" on the money offered to Parise. They didn't want a cap hit of $7.5 million for him, and it doesn't sound like their chances were ever that good of landing him.
For more on the Detroit Red Wings, check out Winging It In Motown. You can check out more hockey news from around the league at SB Nation's NHL page.