Tatar heading to Slovakia for a bit before returning to Grand Rapids

DETROIT — It appears Tomas Tatar will be heading to his native country to play until the American Hockey League begins.

The Wings have been talking with Tatar’s agent about possibly assigning him to a club in, possibly HKm Zvolen where he played before joining the Grand Rapids Griffins for the 2009-10 season.

“He wants to play in Slovakia until the American League starts,” Wings general manager Ken Holland said. “Rather than going to an American League training camp he wants to play in Slovakia and make some money.

“We’re going to let him,” Holland added. “He can go and play in Slovakia now instead of doing nothing. Grand Rapids doesn’t even start training camp until the 30th of September so basically we can assign him there, he’ll be there for three weeks and then we’ll re-evaluate it in three weeks. The plan is when the American League season starts he’ll come back.

The Wings could also do the same with Gustav Nyquist, assigning him to a club in Sweden until the AHL season starts.

Neither player would be subjected to waivers.

“The American League is probably going to be a similar situation as in 2004,” Holland said. “You look at Jeff Skinner in the American League, (Jordan) Eberle, (Ryan) Nugent-Hopkins and a whole lot of others so it’s going to be a great league.”