When age does matter

On Monday, Detroit officially signed Dominick Hasek to their team - making the average age of their goaltender 37 years old.

Trust me, that's not a good thing.

Detroit finished on the top of their divison, conference and the league in the standings last year - but flopped out of the first round against the surging Edmonton Oilers. Perhaps they were an overrated team that played in a weak division or maybe they had a bad break or two - it's moot.

The last time that Hasek laced up for the Red Wings (in 2002), he backstopped them to a Stanley Cup - which is what I'm sure that the Wings were hoping for when they signed him this time. But it won't be enough - it wouldn't be enough even if they signed Roberto Luongo (okay, maybe that would be enough - maybe).

The Red Wings mainly used three goalies last season - their former #1 (and the first player dropped from their roster) Manny Legace, who posted 37 wins, a 2.19 GAA and a save % of 915, Chris Osgood, who had 20 wins, a GAA of 2.76 and .897 save % and Jimmy Howard who played in all of four games (and isn't even listed on their roster anymore).

But after their almost epic first-round collapse against the Oilers, the Red Wings have had an overhaul - gone are their star goalie (Manny wasn't resigned), their captain (Steve Yzerman retired in July) and their goals-scored leader left via free agency (Brendan Shanahan signed with the Rangers in July). Adding to that, it's only a matter of time before age renders their emotional leader, Chris Chelios, unable to play at the level he must.

The Red Wings are an old team getting older in a league where speed is suddenly the key. Last season their success could more of less be attributed to a combination of stellar goaltending from Legace and the general lack of success in their division (three of the five teams in their divison finished in the cellar last year: St. Louis, Chicago and Columbus) - but with the loss of Legace and the improvement of Columbus - after all, a healthy Rick Nash may well be the difference between the cellar and a good playoff run for the Blue Jackets - even bringing in Hasek may mot work.

Hasek hasn't played a full season in years - he hasn't started more then 44 games since the 2001-02 season - and is coming off of a season-ending injury that he sustained during the Turino Olympics. And while his stats are good - He's had a GAA under 2.50 since 1995-96 and had more then 20 wins in three of his last four seasons - it would be an absolute surprise if he can dominate like he did with the Senators one more time.

So - what's to expect from the Red Wings? Don't write them off quite yet - they're still a good team in a bad division - but don't expect them to win with Hasek in net.