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Profile
Birthday: March 7, 1990
Birthplace: Macomb, MI
Height: 6’3”
Weight: 192 lbs.
Shoots: Left
Drafted: Undrafted
Contract: 5yr/$25M remaining
Last Season’s Performance
You would be hard pressed to find anyone, including Danny DeKeyser himself, who would not say last season did not go well for #65. He recorded career lows in just about every category while recording a career high in ice time and being asked to carry the Red Wings blue line as its defacto top pairing defenseman.
| Scor | Scor | Scor | Shot | Shot | Shot | Ice | Ice | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Season | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | S | S% | TSA | TOI | ATOI | HIT | BLK | TK | GV |
| 2012-13 | 11 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 4 | 2 | 15 | 0.0 | 27 | 199 | 18:03 | 9 | 9 | 5 | 6 |
| 2013-14 | 65 | 4 | 19 | 23 | 10 | 30 | 84 | 4.8 | 172 | 1407 | 21:38 | 64 | 116 | 13 | 36 |
| 2014-15 | 80 | 2 | 29 | 31 | 11 | 42 | 89 | 2.2 | 217 | 1674 | 20:56 | 74 | 88 | 14 | 38 |
| 2015-16 | 78 | 8 | 12 | 20 | 2 | 44 | 72 | 11.1 | 145 | 1701 | 21:48 | 88 | 107 | 17 | 38 |
| 2016-17 | 82 | 4 | 8 | 12 | -22 | 33 | 85 | 4.7 | 177 | 1800 | 21:57 | 100 | 170 | 16 | 45 |
| Career | 316 | 18 | 69 | 87 | 5 | 151 | 345 | 5.2 | 738 | 6780 | 21:27 | 335 | 490 | 65 | 163 |
Some of the drop could be pinned on a rotating pairing partner and a generally inconsistent at best Red Wings offense. Some could also be pinned to the Red Wings putting DeKeyser in a role that his skill level would not allow him to be successful in (i.e. playing top pairing minutes against top pairing competition).
This Season’s Expectations
While it would be in both the interest of both the Red Wings and DeKeyser if Danny’s 2017-18 season saw him log the type of minutes he did during the 2014-15 season, it appears 2017-18 will be very similar to 2016-17. He will once again be asked to shoulder top line minutes against the opposing team’s best players. It will likely not be a complete exercise in insanity however, as the team has already stated that they will look to pair newly acquired defenseman Trevor Daley with DeKeyser on the top pair. Daley’s ability to rush up ice with the puck should help take some of the offensive pressure off DeKeyser and allow him to work on getting back to being, as Babcock once said, one of the best defensemen from the red line back into his own zone. While I do not expect him to necessarily reach 30+ points again, I think he is capable of putting up more than the 12 he did last year. More importantly, I do expect that he can return to the calm and collected in his own zone defenseman we saw in the first few seasons instead of the turn over prone ball of nerves we saw last season. With four more years at five million a year left on his deal after this upcoming season, it is extremely important that DeKeyser does just that this season.