Red Wings sign Mitchell Callahan

The Detroit Free Press is reporting that the Red Wings have signed 18-year-old Mitchell Callahan to a three-year entry-level contract.

Callahan was drafted by Detroit in the sixth-round (180th overall) in the 2009 NHL Draft. He's spent the past two seasons playing for the Kelowna Rockets, who played in the 2009 Memorial Cup, in the Western Hockey League.

He scored 20 goals and had 27 assists for 47 points in 72 games this past season. At 5-foot-9 and only 175 pounds, I was a bit surprised to find out he also tallied 165 penalty minutes, but he has played the agitator role very well for Kelowna in his time there.

He is going to have to get bigger if he wants to keep up his style of play in the NHL. Players like Callahan are usually ones the Wings tend to not draft, but they saw potential in him as a future third- or fourth-liner.

According to hockeyfights.com, Callahan dropped the gloves 19 times this year, which was the second highest total in the WHL.

He seems to fit the typical agitator definition: a yapper, has the ability to get under a player's skin, and hits everything.

His size will hamper him at the next level, but I think that he has the qualities -- hard-hitter, high-energy, afraid of no one -- to be a grinder and checking line type of player with Detroit.