Last night Ken Daniels mentioned that Holland was planning to make a move today.  Brad May has been waived, and now that 3pm ET has come and gone, there were no trades, even after much speculation that Lebda or Meech could be going.

Now it comes out that Kirk Maltby might be headed to LTIR with season ending shoulder surgery.

Per Khan:

“Kirk Maltby has been playing with a chronic shoulder (issue) since last June and it’s been progressively getting worse,” Holland said. “Maybe should have had an operation earlier in the year, but given all the injuries that hit us we were in no position to do it.”

Maltby is talking to doctors and his agent to determine what he should do. If he has the surgery, Holland indicated he would be out for two months, the rest of the regular season.

It’s certainly convenient that they’re bringing up surgery talk now, when he’s been playing with it all season, and apparently could have finished out the season with it.  But Lilja is suddenly on his way back and who else are they going to move?  They can’t just waive Lebda or Meech, because either of them would some sort of return value.  So to push the issue with Maltby is the easiest option on the tight deadline that is the Olympic roster freeze.

I am securely in the camp who believes that Maltby has gotten to the point where he deserves to end his career the way he wants.  It already seemed highly unlikely that Holland would bring him back for next season, so it’s unfortunate that this might be it for him.  He’s been a good soldier for the Red Wings, and a great hockey player over his career.  Yeah he’s become redundant in the past few seasons, with guys like Abdelkader and Helm coming up, but he’s always just done his job.  He’s still an asset, at least in terms of chirping and yapping and getting under the other team’s skin.  I’ll be sad when he leaves.

On the other hand, I hope he chooses to go and get the surgery done now, rather than at the end of the season.  For his own health, and to, as Matt put it, “take one for the team.”  It might be his only chance to have a say in how his career ends.

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