Erik Cole arrived in Detroit to join his new team today, and the first thing he did was deliver an important message.
It came from the captain of his former team, Jamie Benn of the Dallas Stars, to the captain of his new team, Henrik Zetterberg. Cole was acquired for two draft picks a few hours before Monday's deadline.
"He sent me with an apology," Cole told reporters after his first practice with the Wings. "I told Z this morning."
That's nice. And it was the right thing to do. Now when is the league going to apologize for overlooking such blatant abuse of one of its marquee players?
Zetterberg has missed the last four games after he was punched repeatedly in the head by Benn in a scrum surrounded by four officials. Zetterberg left the game and did not return for the third period, when the Wings overcame two two-goal deficits in the third period of a wild, 7-6 Detroit victory.
And what did we hear from the NHL about that? Crickets.
Imagine how league officials would have responded if Pittsburgh's Sidney Crosby or Washington's Alexander Ovechkin had been sucker-punched like that. Or anybody in Toronto or New York. Oh, the outrage!
Such hypocrisy. For a league that insists it's doing everything possible to protect its players from head injuries -- especially when caused by such gratuitous violence -- the unthinkable decision not to slap Benn with some form of supplemental discipline is inexcusable.
Zetterberg missed four games with headaches. He skated hard Monday and again on Tuesday, and hoped to be cleared for contact afterward. He remains questionable for Wednesday's game against the visiting New York Rangers.
If he does play, he'll likely be flanked by Cole, a speedy and acerbic 6-foot-2, 210-pound on one wing, and Justin Abdelkader, 6-1 and 220 pounds, on the other. Not since Steve Yzerman had Bob Probert on one wing and Gerard Gallant on the other has a top-line center been surrounded by such a combination of size, speed, grit and goal-scoring ability.
This gives the Wings a unique one-two punch with its top two lines. The Pavel Datsyuk line, with Darren Helm on one wing and Tomas Tatar on the other, can fly. And it carried the Wings on the road in Zetterberg's absence. With that kind of speed on one line and a take-no-prisoners physical unit with three guys who can score on another, the Wings will be awfully hard to match up against. (Helm, however, will miss a week or so with an upper body injury suffered in Saturday's win at Nashville.)
Meantime, Cole seemed grateful for the change of scenery after he was traded from Dallas, a team unlikely to make the playoffs.
"There are definitely worse places to end up," he said. "I'm pretty fortunate to have this opportunity."
