Red Wings head coach Mike Babcock announced today that the team would be converting its defensive strategy for the 2012-13 season over to a “lookout” system after executive vice president and general manager Ken Holland failed to sign any of the top available defensive free agents to a contract this week.
“Once a forward from the opposing team skates the puck into the neutral zone from their own zone, our players on the ice will all turn towards Jimmy Howard and yell, in unison, ‘Look out, Jimmy — here comes the puck!'” said Babcock. “In the event that it’s Jonas Gustuvsson in net, the strategy will likely change to yelling ‘Look out, Jonas — here comes the puck!'”
When asked about the lack of defensive free agent signings, Holland shrugged.
“Look, let’s face it. Nobody wants to come to Detroit anymore … and now that Nick Lidstrom has retired, it’s time for me to start planning my own retirement as I’ve said to the press previously,” Holland remarked. “I have faith in Coach Babcock’s lookout system; traditionally it was only used in beer leagues and children’s leagues, but if there’s anybody who can adapt the lookout defense strategy to work at the NHL level, it’s Mike Babcock.”
82-year-old team owner Mike Illitch also weighed in on the lack of defense for the upcoming season.
“I don’t think it’s a big deal, really. With the signing of key scorers like Mikael Samuelsson and Jordin Tootoo, we won’t really need that much defense. If worse comes to worse, we can probably talk Kris Draper and Kirk Maltby into coming back from retirement — they’re pretty good at defense,” he said. “We’ve still got Sergei Fedorov, Brett Hull, Brendan Shannahan, and Steve Yzerman.”
After a brief pause, one of Mr. Illitch’s assistants whispered into his ear, and he then left the press conference stating he was feeling ill, but not without reminding everybody that Little Caesar’s now sells a “Three Meat Treat” Hot-N-Ready pizza for $8 at all participating locations.
