The triumphant return of Andy Delmore (sort of)

According to TSN the Detroit Red Wings have signed defenseman Andy Delmore, who spent the last two years in the DEL, to a two-way contract. A fantastic scorer, Delmore always was absolutely awful in his own zone - a quality that has always hindered his progress as a defenseman. Nevertheless he has cracked 30 points twice in Nashville and was one of two heroes of Philadelphia's playoff run in 1999-2000. He also managed to win the Eddie Shore Award as the AHL's best defenseman in 2005-2006.

It will be interesting to see whether he manages to crack Detroit's lineup. Lidstrom, Kronwall, Rafalski, Stuart and Ericsson seem to be untouchable - this leaves Lebda, Lilja and Delmore battling for the remaining spot in the lineup with one of the losers getting the 7th defenseman's spot in the pressbox. Depending on his cap hit (it hasn't been revealed yet), Delmore could make a run at pushing Lilja out of his spot - Detroit is one of the teams fighting for every Penny and Lilja, an UFA next year is being paid $1.25 million. Delmore also has a higher offensive ceiling than Lebda but he has to be paired with a great stay-at-home defenseman to be effective - fortunately the Red Wings have a lot of those.