Red Wings briefly sign Pokémon to one-year deal

Someone in the Detroit Red Wings social media department has been playing a little too much Pokémon Go.

Either that, or the NHL franchise has decided the best way to overcome the loss of Pavel Datsyuk is by capturing players in a tiny red and white ball, feeding them candy until they become all-powerful. Which is pretty much how we always imagined they ended up with Datsyuk to begin with.

On Wednesday, the Red Wings proudly announced the re-signing of forward Teemu Pokémon.

Hilarity ensued.

The Red Wings either completed the punchline or corrected the tweet (it’s totally the latter) moments later:

And here we thought Ken Holland was aimlessly walking around Detroit in a zombified state, looking at his iPhone. Then we realized it wasn’t July 1 …

Alas, this probably means we aren’t in the midst of an Atlantic Division Pokémon arms race, which is good news for every team not named the Buffalo Sabres. C’mon, you know Pegula is spending to the cap to secure a fully evolved and maxed out Charmander.

For the record, this would have been the second Pokémon the Red Wings have ever captured, years after locating and securing a wild Abdelkader. And they’re still trying to evolve him into 25-goal scorer…

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Greg Wyshynski is a writer for Yahoo Sports. Contact him at puckdaddyblog@yahoo.com or find him on Twitter. His book, TAKE YOUR EYE OFF THE PUCK, is available on Amazon and wherever books are sold.