Griffinscentral reports that Josh Langfeld was called up from Grand Rapids today. This should suggest that Williams might not play at all on this road trip. DetNews had reported earlier today that Williams was still healing, but hoped to catch up with them later in the week–perhaps in Calgary on Friday, as the Freep suggested. This is still a possibility, and perhaps Langfeld is just a precautionary call-up, in case someone gets injured on the road. They have Kopecky, who is usually scratched, so they shouldn’t need a replacement for Williams otherwise.
The most interesting thing about this is the fact that the Wings completely skipped over Brad Norton. I’m wondering, as I’m sure Norton is, why this is. A major part of why Norton decided to go to the AHL rather than retire was because he could get called up. So why did they call up Langfeld over Norton?
Langfeld is having a good season thus far with Grand Rapids. He is second on the team in points, with only Kip Miller ahead of him. In 15 games, Langfeld has 6 goals and 12 points with a +/- of -3. Four of his six goals are on the powerplay.
With Kronwall not playing tomorrow night in Vancouver, they may want Norton to play defense instead of forward, especially given the fact that Lilja doesn’t seem any closer to coming back. Now they have just five defensemen rather than the six they were using while Lilja’s been out. Still, in that case, why didn’t they just call up Quincey?
Yeah Megan, I don’t get why they skipped over Norton either. Then again, maybe they saw some of the Griffins game Saturday - Langfeld didn’t look too bad despite the loss and even scored a goal. Meanwhile, Norton wasn’t exactly stunning on the Griffins blue line.
Matt- Norton is in GR, they’d have to send someone down to call him up. Also, I think Lils recovered a while ago (he played last Saturday), Babs is just playing Lebda over him. They probably won’t call up a d-man unless they have to put Kronwall on IR.
Sarah- you’re right. I had forgotten how well Langfeld played on Saturday. He did look good. I didn’t think Norton looked terrible, but he didn’t look like an NHL player. At the same time, they wouldn’t call him up to play defense, either. The Wings would call him up to play offense–which he had been playing before getting injured.
Ah, I feel stupid. I’d forgotten both those things, Sarah.
Helene St. James is reporting that Tomas Holmstrom won’t play tomorrow night. Another reason to bring Landfeld up, I suppose.