According to Ansar Khan, Jason Williams will replace Josh Langfeld in the lineup tonight.
Khan also provides an explanation for the strange call up yesterday of Darryl Bootland and Evan McGrath:
The Wings sent forwards Darryl Bootland and Evan McGrath back to Grand Rapids. Actually, they never arrived out West. It was just a paper move to get the team close to the salary cap ceiling, enabling them to place Jiri Fischer on long-term injured reserve and get relief for his $1.44 million salary.
Hm, I’d thought the league was going to actually go so far as to ensure plane tickets had been purchased for callups, so as to avoid cap finangles like that one. Not that the Wings don’t deserve some cap relief - it’s pretty clear Fischer’s NHL career is done - but it seems to me that if Bootland and McGrath never arrived with the Wings, that the NHL isn’t doing what it said it would do.
Well, as far as I know, they did get on the plane. They just didn’t make it before the Wings’ cap manuever was over.
If it’s what they had to do in order to get cap relief from Jiri’s contract, kudos for them. It was ridiculous that he was still counting against the cap, anyway, given the nature of his ailment.