Detroit Red Wings: Four players that could traded before Monday
By Bob Heyrman
Luke Glendening
The former Michigan Wolverine had been regularly in the trade talks over the last couple of seasons. He was often linked to the Toronto Maple Leafs when Mike Babcock was the bench boss as he loved Luke Glendening‘s game, compete level, faceoff success, and penalty-killing specialist.
Glendening is the perfect fourth-line center in today’s NHL. He can move to the wing if need be, usually after he wins a faceoff. The Grand Rapids native is really struggling this season, but the entire team is for that matter, but Glendening’s statistics are very bleak.
Through 52 games, he’s recorded 6 goals, 3 assists totaling 9 points. It’s his worst performance since his rookie season. Although he’s not known to record a bundle of points, he’s usually settling in around 20 points or so with, on average, 10 goals.
Glendening’s puck possession stats haven’t been good at all throughout his career; it’s no different this season. He’s regularly finding himself checking the opponent’s top line, which will always hurt his Corsi For Percentage. This season it’s an ugly 39.6%, which is the worst of his career. His career average is 42.8%, which is also well below average; in fact, it’s well below the team average of 45.2%.
Glendening does hold value. He’s under contract through next season, so he’s not a pure rental player. His contract is very affordable, only costing a buying team $1.5M in real money next season and holding a cap hit of only $1.8 million.
He can fit on a contending team’s fourth line, play around 13 minutes a night and be effective in his role. He’s the type of player a playoff team would love to add for the value it would cost to add him. He is winning nearly 58% of his faceoffs.
The Detroit Red Wings won’t race to give him away, but he’d easily be had for a fourth-round pick but even a combination of current and future late-round choices I don’t see Yzerman saying no.