Red Wings will use buyouts if they don't make any pre-draft deals

Helene St. James | USA TODAY Sports

The Detroit Red Wings will have a chance to ease their payroll next week, and are likely to take advantage of the opportunity if they can't work out any trades.

The window to use two compliance buyouts this summer opens 48 hours after the end of the Stanley Cup playoffs — either Wednesday or Friday — and closes July 4. Teams can also opt to save one, or both, compliance buyouts for next summer. Usually buyouts count against the salary cap, but these two are exempt, part of austerity measures designed to help clubs adjust to a salary cap which will drop six million to $64.3 million for 2013-14.

The No. 1 buyout candidate is Mikael Samuelsson, who was a non-factor this past season, felled by one injury after another. He's got a year left at $3 million, money that could be well used towards funding a top-six forward.

There's a hurdle, though: As of now, Samuelsson isn't healthy, and that makes him ineligible to be bought out. General manager Ken Holland said earlier in the week that Samuelsson has been told by doctors seen in the past two weeks that surgery is not required for the latest injury, which involved a sore pectoral muscle/shoulder. The best the Wings can hope for is that Samuelsson heals in the next 10 days, though it doesn't take a conspiracy theorist to see that for the player, there'd be motivation to fight against being cleared.

The no. 2 candidate is defenseman Carlo Colaiacovo, who will make $2.5 million next season. Colaiacovo was pushed down the depth chart when Danny DeKeyser joined the group in March, and right now, the six regulars figure to be DeKeyser, Niklas Kronwall, Jonathan Ericsson, Brendan Smith, Kyle Quincey and Jakub Kindl, with Brian Lashoff as the seventh guy.

There's also been murmurs about Todd Bertuzzi, who has a cap hit of $2 million, but here's why I'd keep him: While Bertuzzi was sidelined Feb. 7 by nerve pain in his back and right leg, he gritted it out and returned in the playoffs. Furthermore, he's one of the team's biggest forwards, and he goes to the net. This will be needed next season, when the Wings move to the more physical Eastern Conference. There's also this: Bertuzzi is a shootout artist. The Wings went 1-4 in shootouts after Bertuzzi got hurt last season.

The Wings don't need to buy out any one because they're $10 million below the salary cap. They're going to look to make a trade before the June 30 draft, but if that doesn't work out, buyouts could fatten their piggy bank before free agency.

Helene St. James writes for the Detroit Free Press, a Gannett property