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Red Wings Lose Cleary for Season

Detroit Winger Hopes to Return in Time for Playoff Run

Feb 13, 2008 Ken Welsch

Dan Cleary has emerged as one of Detroit's top-scoring forwards this season, but a broken jaw will force the Red Wings to find production from another source.

Perhaps it can be written off as a minor coincidence. First the Detroit Red Wings lost forward Dan Cleary. Then they lost three straight games.

The Red Wings dropped their fourth in a row Tuesday evening when they fell 4-2 to the Nashville Predators. It was the third straight game the Wings finished without Cleary, who suffered a broken jaw Feb. 9 against Toronto and will be out for the remainder of the regular season.

For Wings’ fans, and Cleary fans in particular, the season-long losing skid underscores the absence of Cleary, the rightwinger who’s had a breakout season this year, emerging as one of the team’s leading offensive threats behind all-stars Henrik Zetterberg and Pavel Datsyuk.

Cleary, a Canadian-born lefty and Chicago’s No. 1 overall pick in the 1997 draft, signed with the Red Wings as a free agent just ahead of the 2005-06 season. Late last season, Wings’ fans took notice when he played well in the playoffs, posting four goals and eight assists in the Wings’ 18 playoff games.

Entering this season, Wings’ Coach Mike Babcock knew he’d be looking for offense from someone other than Zetterburg and Datsyuk, and he found it in Cleary. He’s one of the team’s four 20-goal scorers this season, and the only one who doesn’t play on the dangerous Zetterberg-Datsyuk-Tomas Holmstrom line. Now, with Cleary sidelined for two months, the Wings are hoping someone, perhaps Valtteri Filppula or Jiri Hudler, will step up to provide a spark of offense.

If there’s an upside, it’s that Cleary, who was already negotiating with Red Wings General Manager Ken Holland to sign beyond this season, is expected to be fully healthy by the time the playoffs arrive. And the Wings, who are 12 points ahead of second-place Dallas in the Western Conference, are in position to hold their lead for the No. 1 seed provided their current slide doesn’t balloon to unlikely proportions.

But even before the Cleary injury, Holland had expressed interest in forward Peter Forsberg, and though Forsberg publicly declined, don’t think Forsberg is the only one Holland is looking at. Does Cleary’s injury force Holland to make a move? Likely not, not as long as the Wings remain assured that Cleary will return for the post-season. But the Wings have five games to play before the Feb. 26 trading deadline. If their four-game skid grows and their 12-point lead dwindles, Holland might be looking at the next month in a much different light.

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