Detroit's dominoes are starting to fall. After Drew Miller yesterday, Patrick Eaves signed a one-year deal at a $750,000 cap hit.

I don't think I'm being original or interesting when I say that Eaves definitely earned a new contract. His speed is incredible. It's obviously not to the level of Darren Helm, but in tandem, no matter who the other winger is, it makes for an entertaining line. Eaves quickly worked his way up from a summer buyout who was a healthy scratch early in the season to a mainstay on the top penalty killing unit and a dependable third line player who could chip in the occasional goal.

An interesting aside to this, as a storyline to watch this coming season, is the fact that both Miller and Eaves will be unrestricted free agents next summer. The one-year deal makes you wonder how deep into Detroit's future do they plan to keep the two of them. I said yesterday that Miller is a common player, but I think Eaves is slightly higher on the food chain than that. He's a solid defensive player who has the speed and big shot to make an impact more on the offensive side of the game. Both players could get much more on the open market, and since they already got lower than their market value, they'll have something to prove since they can cash in next summer.

Also, both deals will help Detroit in securing Helm and Justin Abdelkader. Holland mentioned that he's looking long-term for both of them. If you can use the Eaves and Miller deals to show that this is what players of equal value are making, you can drive the price down on the both of them. However, since they're long-term deals, they'll be a little higher to begin with, since they'll need to project that both Helm and Abdelkader will get better -- something that is almost certainly true. There's a little more on that in my last post.

And, surprise, it's getting easier and easier to fit Mike Modano into the lineup. Let's just look at an updated picture courtesy of Capgeek.

FORWARDS
Pavel Datsyuk ($6.700m) / Henrik Zetterberg ($6.083m) / Johan Franzen ($3.955m)
Valtteri Filppula ($3.000m) / Jiri Hudler ($2.875m) / Daniel Cleary ($2.800m)
Todd Bertuzzi ($1.938m) / Tomas Holmstrom ($1.875m) / Kris Draper ($1.583m)
Patrick Eaves ($0.750m) / Drew Miller ($0.650m) / Mattias Ritola ($0.517m)
DEFENSEMEN
Nicklas Lidstrom ($6.200m) / Brian Rafalski ($6.000m)
Brad Stuart ($3.750m) / Niklas Kronwall ($3.000m)
Jonathan Ericsson ($0.900m) / Jakub Kindl ($0.883m)
GOALTENDERS
Chris Osgood ($1.417m) / Jimmy Howard ($0.717m)

So that's $3,758,000 in cap space, or as much as $4,275,000 with Mattias Ritola in the AHL to sign Helm, Abdelkader, a forward who may or may not be Modano, and a defenseman who could be but likely won't be Doug Janik or Andreas Lilja. Where's all the panic coming from, again?