OUR thug, or just any old thug?

The Red Wings are still the Red Wings, for anyone who was concerned about the implications of the salary cap in the NHL. Todd Bertuzzi, while a significant health risk, was one of the top three players "available" by the trade deadline of 3pm yesterday, and the mighty Wings pulled off a deal to bring him in. But it's not as easy as it was with Curtis Joseph, Luc Robitaille, Robert Lang, or anyone else.

First, the aforementioned significant health risk. Bertuzzi has back problems. He's played 7 games this year. He hasn't been "effective" since his monster 2002-03 season. The Wings miss Brendan Shanahan, but Bertuzzi is not Brendan Shanahan. Shanahan was a fighter who reinvented himself and became one of the top 10 power forwards in NHL and a future Hall of Famer. Bertuzzi is 31 and has had two very good seasons and two or three decent ones. But do the Wings need Bertuzzi to score? Not really. It would be nice, but let's be honest, he's going to be a stunt double for guys like Zetterberg, Datsyuk, Cleary, and Samuelsson. I would have rather had Gary Roberts.

Looming abover everything else, though, is what Mitch Albom calls "the shadow" in this morning's Free Press. As anyone who watches any sports network in North America, and maybe even those who don't watch, remembers, Todd Bertuzzi almost killed a guy. On the ice. With a cheap shot. For a city that remembers the '96 Conference Finals and Claude "insert obscene nickname here" Lemieux's dirty shot to the head of Kris Draper, Bertuzzi's hit on Steve Moore has become an instant message board topic and wedge between the very, very loyal fans of this team. I am very torn. As a person who believes that even some of the worst criminals can be rehabilitated, I want to give Bertuzzi a second chance. Then I see how he almost ended this guy's life in a stupid retaliatory play and didn't pay for it in any way and it disgusts me. If I had done this to someone on the street four years ago, I'd be in jail today. His "suspension" coincided with the lockout season, so anyone who brings that up as penance needs to do their homework. In this case, I would have rather had anyone but Todd Bertuzzi. Except maybe Claude Lemieux.

Realistically, Bertuzzi may never play a game for the Wings. Even if he comes back on schedule, the key deal the Wings made was for Kyle Calder. Playing for the Flyers (and not just this season, I'm talking EVER) would turn Gretzky into a 60-point scorer. Calder is flying totally under the radar at this point and may become the top offensive player on this team if he sticks around. And why wouldn't he? He's played on two terrible teams in his career with very few other skilled offensive players. This team (the Wings) brought Dan Cleary back from the dead. Kyle Calder, too, will rise again. If he plays 75 games next season, he'll score 90 points.

Any attention that Calder's acquisition got was immediately smothered by Bertuzzi. But this might be a good thing. As weird as it sounds, the Wings might need an off-ice distraction to keep them focused on what they have to do, which is make the conference finals. Anything less, and Babcock is on the hot seat already, whether it's fair or not. I would not have made the deal for Bertuzzi, but I'm not a GM. I'm also willing to wait and see. There are approximately 20 articles about Bertuzzi in the two Detroit papers this morning, and almost every one mentions his incident. He needs to address it. Don't go the Webber route, Todd. Give us a sound bite. Let us know you're sorry and ready to win a Cup for Hockeytown.