Detroit Red Wings GM Ken Holland Will Have Tough Decsions To Make This Summer

I have to think that at some point in the not too distant future, for the Detroit Red Wings, the summer of 2009 will be known simply as "The Exodus."

Last summer marked the single biggest loss of roster players in recent Red Wing history with Marian Hossa, Jiri Hudler, Mikael Samuelsson, Ty Conklin, and Tomas Kopecky all leaving the Motor City for greener pastures, literally.

All five of these players left Detroit for financial reasons.

Every single one of them said they wanted to stay, but the money had to be right.

However, as early as the first month of the 2008-09 regular season, Detroit GM Ken Holland wrote his song titled "We Can't Keep Everybody" and sung it continuously throughout the year.

Now, I'm certain Holland wasn't prepared to lose everyone that they did, Jiri Hudler in particular.  But he had known for a while that guys like Samuelsson and Hossa were all but gone as they were legitimately worth more than he could pay them due to cap constraints.

Yes, there's no doubt about it, "The Exodus" stung. It was a tough summer.

This summer will be even tougher.

When you've got things you'd like to buy but no money to buy it with, there's a certain amount of frustration and despair that comes with that dilemma.

But ultimately, there's really nothing you can do about it; no agonizing choice to make, you just can't afford it and move on.

When this season is over, Detroit will have over $16 million coming off the books in salary and a whopping 13 players on their current roster potentially heading into some form of free agency.

Wanting to keep players you can't afford stings, but how much tougher is it to decide which players you want to spend on and which ones to let walk away?

Sometimes having choices is tougher than having none at all.

After all, most fans lamented the departures of Hossa and Hudler, but they knew Holland made his best possible pitch to get them and just couldn't compete with the offers they got from Chicago and the KHL, respectively.

This summer, Holland is bound to make some people mad with the choices he makes, and he is going to have to roll the dice on some players that may or may not turn out to be good gambles.

And these are just the players on the current roster; we're not even talking about players that could be had on the free agent market.

As few things are more fun than spending other people's money, I'm going to take Detroit's $16 million and play GM for a day, deciding who I want to keep and who I'll cut loose.

I've put my picks in a slide show entitled Impending Free Agents Red Wings GM Ken Holland Should Keep Around Next Season (I don't know, do you think that title is too confusing?).

Just as Holland's are bound to, my choices are sure to piss someone off, so please, let the opinions, negative or otherwise, fly!