Wings Won’t Bring Back Lang

The Detroit News reports that Red Wings GM Ken Holland has opted not to offer a contract to forward Robert Lang. Lang will become an unrestricted free agent on July 1.

“With the salary cap, you can’t bring back everyone,” Holland said. “It forces you to make decisions.”

Holland will be meeting with the agents for defensemen Danny Markov and Mathieu Schneider and goalie Dominik Hasek during the draft this weekend.

I don’t think a lot of people will be too surprised that Lang won’t return. He saw decreased playing time during the playoffs and has been a constant target of criticism across the blogosphere (I hate that word).

To replace him, I expect either that Pavel Datsyuk and Henrik Zetterberg will be split up to center the top two lines or Valtteri Filppula will jump up to second-line center.