A funny thing happened late last month when the Red Wings re-signed Joe Veleno.
“Two years at $2.275 million?!” said a person who is imaginary but representative of pockets of fans on social media. “But the models had him closer to $2 million! This ~$250,000 overpay is yet another example of how poorly the Red Wings’ rebuild is going!”
It’s been much of the same for most of the offseason. Just L after L, if you listen to @notasensfan4352 and company: trading Jake Walman and needing to attach a sweetener, drafting yet another responsible two-way forward in the first round, failing to land a big fish in the opening days of free agency, signing so many goalies, dispatching another useful piece in Robby Fabbri, not buying out Justin Holl and now, apparently, giving a little bit too much money (according to “the models”) to a player who has shown steady improvement so far in his NHL career.
“And this team expects to get to the playoffs?!”
It’s nothing new, of course. I briefly debated re-posting my take on the rebuild from last summer as is to see if anyone would notice, as my feelings haven’t changed much. If anything, I feel better about the direction of the rebuild, for reasons we’ll be getting into today.
Part of it is just the nature of the hockey news cycle. Since the NHL seems content with cramming what other sports would see as months’ worth of media coverage into an awards/draft/free agency/development camp sprint as soon as the Stanley Cup Finals end, there’s a lot of space to fill during the dog days of the summer.
Many media outlets pegged Detroit as free agency losers — since history so regularly proves that the teams that dish out the most money and longest contracts are the clear winners — and plenty of digital ink has been spilled about what is now the second-longest playoff drought in the NHL by folks who don’t think it’ll be ending next season, either.
What surprised me the most, though, was seeing the results of The Athletic’s annual front-office confidence survey. Max Bultman wrote a piece worth your time about the reasons Detroit’s fallen from third to 21st over the last two seasons — including a 45% share of Red Wings fans feeling less confident in the front office than one year ago.
While the readers of Winging It In Motown are demonstrably smarter than the aforementioned groups, it’s still quite eye-opening. I wonder if there’s a disconnect in where people perceive the franchise’s progress which, to an outsider, might be seen as a team pushing hard for a playoff spot, while I see it as a team just beginning to come out of a long rebuild.
Here’s why I feel that the takes on this summer are overblown, reasons I feel that the Red Wings could actually improve in 2024-25, and why I’m not worried about the direction that rebuild is headed.
A short-term approach
It’s probably fair to assume the Red Wings had plans to be slightly more active during free agency, I think the one- and two-year deals we saw handed out to Vladimir Tarasenko, Tyler Motte, Erik Gustafsson and Cam Talbot indicated that Detroit was still looking for short-term patches. I’m not sure if they quite anticipated the — frankly — recklessness in which teams handed out long-term deals to players who may not be worthy of them. Maybe the fact that the salary cap jumped up after a few years of stagnation should have been a tell, but it seemed to me that teams were getting smarter about free-agent contracts in recent summers.
But, nope, it was like a teen behind the wheel of his parents’ sports car as the league collectively sought to revisit 2016 free agency which, to any newer fans, was a masterclass in overspending and giving way too much term to players who were certainly useful, but almost every single one was bought out, traded for scraps or otherwise dispatched before the deals concluded. I have not seen Detroit do that under the current administration, and I’m glad they didn’t start now.
I’d go so far as to argue that Yzerman has yet to sign a free agent he sees as part of the team’s future. The longest deals he’s signed feel like stopgaps: on defense, Ben Chiarot got four years, which coincides nicely with a wave of defensive prospects who will be knocking at the door in the next two years. The nearly identical five-year deals that Andrew Copp and J.T. Compher got are hard to stomach for some fans, but filled holes on a depth chart that was bereft of long-term centers beyond Dylan Larkin and Joe Veleno. The hope is that Marco Kasper and Nate Danielson will take over there eventually, but it’s hard to learn to play center in the NHL, so it makes sense to have bodies in place to ease the kids in and, once they’re ready, see Copp and Compher ultimately shift to the wing for the final year or two of their deals.
I think the length of the rebuild is misunderstood a bit. While the team has missed the playoffs for eight straight years and the term “rebuild” has been floating around the fanbase for longer than that, it’s pretty obvious that the clock reset when Yzerman took over. Larkin and Rasmussen are the only Holland-era players remaining in the organization, while Veleno and Berggren were added during that regime’s final draft.
All this is to say that, despite a few deals that are less than palatable (show me a cap sheet that’s been perfectly managed), nothing is prohibitive to what Detroit is trying to do right now. But Walman and Fabbri some of you are no doubt screaming right now, and while I’d have liked to keep both, it does make sense to me. They were simply overpaid for the roles they were penciled into for this season.
I’m not sure about the whys for Walman, who looked great with Moritz Seider, but he fell out of favor after his injury last year and, between him and Holl, it was a lot of money for players in the press box on a team trending towards the cap ceiling. If they weren’t planning to play him with Seider anymore, it was the right thing to do — the 2nd is a steep price, but they did get that pick along with a pretty intriguing prospect (Jesse Kiiskinen) for Andrew Gibson, who was a selection most experts considered a reach. Gibson had a good year and returned surplus value for the position he was taken. It wasn’t the overpay that some folks are suggesting.
I’ll root for Walman because he seems like a good dude, but he’s heading to the bleakest defensive corps in the league, and I think it might be harder to hide warts in his game playing with Jan Rutta or Cody Ceci instead of Seider. As for Fabbri — he was a personal favorite of mine, I loved how he could contribute in any situation and he intensity with which he played — but it was $4 million for a player ticketed for a depth role again. They were likely the easiest choices to drop for the cost (a 2nd round pick acquired during a prospect swap and a 4th).
I think the ability to move contracts without retention is a feature of good cap management, instead of a sign of concern. It allows a team to be more aggressive in spending towards the cap limit, knowing it has useful players on reasonable contracts that teams will want, instead of needing a premium to shed a horrible deal or incur future cap penalties through a buyout. It may also mean that players who needed to be re-signed — Lucas Raymond and Moritz Seider most notably, but don’t discount Patrick Kane either — performed better than expected in terms of the future dollars that may have been penciled in elsewhere.
When the dust settled — and it was not exactly a graceful landing, to be sure — Detroit avoided contributing to a parade of ridiculous contracts around the league, retained perhaps the most skilled player slated for free agency (Kane), managed to find a top-six bargain relative to the deals other wingers went for (Tarasenko), shored up goaltending depth and, assuming there are no negotiation hiccups, freed up space to allow them to lock up their brightest young stars to long-term contracts, if that’s the direction both parties agree upon. It’s a fairly tidy business, relative to the rest of the market.
How the Red Wings can actually be better
Plenty are expecting the Red Wings to take a step back this season. I can see why; Yzerman even admitted in an offseason press conference that some of the crazy comebacks may have skewed reality. It’s hard to disagree — the amount of third-period and multi-goal comebacks was awesome, but also meant the team was putting itself in a situation to need to do that too often, even during the final exciting weeks of the season. They also suffered major collapses or blowout losses against some of the league’s worst teams, like San Jose, Arizona and Ottawa, yet they never looked outclassed by the league’s elite teams.
I’ve been a hockey fan since 1995. I was employed by them for nine seasons. There has never been a regular season like this. There are more important goals, for sure, but these are some of the most hair-raising moments I can think of:
This all happened in the same week! Do we all remember this season? It was pure chaos. There are other dramatic moments I could include, too. Unfortunately, this is not something you can count on. Something like this can become part of a team’s DNA, but it’s not guaranteed to carry over from year to year. It’s probably better management to put the team in situations where it doesn’t need to stage so many dramatic comebacks.
When you look at pure counting stats, it appears the Red Wings have not replaced the scoring they lost, the defense has not clearly been upgraded and the goaltending is still suspect. It will take a lot going right, and it will take injury luck, but let’s examine some reasons why the sky might not be falling. If the right combination of this falls Detroit’s way, I think improvement and a playoff berth are in the cards.
1. Raymond ascends. Analytics showed Raymond producing among the league’s elite down the stretch. The eye test certainly matched. It looked like “his team” as he took over multiple games in ways he had rarely done through his first 2.5 seasons. If he’s a true point-per-game player, a 40-goal or 90-point guy, someone who can be trusted for 20-22 minutes instead of 17-19, that is probably the biggest singular improvement that Detroit’s roster can make. The “Detroit tanked and didn’t land a star” narrative can fizzle out because a year like that would be a strong case they landed the best player in the 2020 draft.
2. Larkin stays healthy. The team looked completely lost in the 14 games he missed due to injury, which is certainly a factor in why they narrowly missed the playoffs. Everyone misses time, everyone plays hurt, but I would not designate Larkin as an injury-prone player. His injuries are freakish: getting cross-checked in the back of the neck by Jamie Benn, getting suckered by a player he has a history with (Mathieu Joseph) while another player comes in to finish a check, twisting an ankle during a scrum because the refs allow Florida to do whatever it wants after whistles. He takes training seriously and with some better luck, maintaining the point-per-game pace he’s produced at for the last three seasons will help Detroit get over the hump.
3. Full-strength Kane. It seems ridiculous to count on a soon-to-be 36-year-old to take a step forward — and every offseason in any sport involves a fair amount of “[player] is reporting in the best shape of his life!” While there’s zero chance Kane will return to Hart Trophy status, is it that absurd to think he’s better this year than last year? There’s a big difference spending your summer on a normal training routine instead of recovering from injury, as he said he’s had to do the last few years. With good health and a now familiar environment, is it that crazy to expect him to be at or near the point-per-game pace he rediscovered in Detroit?
4. Don’t sleep on Seider. Seider is near unicorn status in the NHL as a defenseman who stepped in and was immediately elite (Brock Faber is the only recent case that comes to mind). There wasn’t much standing in his way from becoming Detroit’s best defenseman from day one. His second and third NHL seasons were regarded as underwhelming because the first was so good. But he’s 23 years old, and there’s no reason to think he doesn’t have another step to take, even if that’s taken some time. He already faces the hardest deployment in the league and has never looked overmatched, so I think it’s only a matter of time until he unlocks the next level.
5. Simon Edvinsson. Defensive play was an obvious weak spot last season for the Red Wings, and the major change appears to involve replacing Shayne Gostisbehere — who’s had an up-and-down career but flourished in Detroit, especially late in the season — with Erik Gustafsson, who can probably best be billed as a budget replacement for Gostisbehere. But Edvinsson is the X-Factor on the blueline. While analytics suggest that it’s rare for a rookie to have an impact beyond a replacement-level player, there are some unique factors with Edvinsson. First, he’s technically not a rookie due to the NHL action he’s seen already, not to mention additional pro experience in Sweden. He’ll have to earn his role, but especially on Detroit’s left side, he’s in a great position to earn big minutes quickly (maybe even with Seider?). He could end up being a far better option as a top-four defenseman than anyone Detroit could have added this summer.
6. Commitment to defense. Edvinsson is a reason for optimism here, but defense is a team effort, so some of the self-inflicted factors that necessitated the late-game heroics could be adjusted with personnel and system adjustments. Detroit did part ways with a slowing David Perron and an offense-first Daniel Sprong, and they’ll have 2-3 new faces on the blueline, brought back PK fixture Christian Fischer and added a similar player in Tyler Motte to shore up two-way play down the lineup.
7. Options in net. Alex Lyon went from a season-saver to a guy who may have been a little overworked last season. Goaltending is still a question mark, but Detroit probably has more options to turn to than last season: Cam Talbot, who was actually an All-Star last season but is also 37; Ville Husso, who’s still looking to regain his 2022-23 early-season form but needs to stay healthy to do so — though he should be in his prime years if he can; Lyon, who isn’t exactly young but still could take some lessons away from his busiest NHL season ever; and even Jack Campbell, likely AHL depth but a player who was a starting goalie in this league from 2018-22 and is now coming to play for his hometown team (and with good friend Larkin) if he needed any extra motivation. I also wouldn’t rule out that Sebastian Cossa gets a taste of NHL action, though I’d caution much of an extended run (and certainly I think the Red Wings having four other options means they would, too).
8. More help on the way. Rookies aren’t saviors, as mentioned above. But aside from Edvinsson, Jonatan Berggren and Albert Johansson have good chances to make the opening-night roster. Both will have to earn their role, but each has 5+ years of pro experience, so they should be ready. Beyond them, you can count on second-year pros Marco Kasper and Carter Mazur getting long looks as players who steadily improved in Grand Rapids last season, and Nate Danielson nearly earned his way onto the roster last fall. There is no shortage of options beyond these, either.
9. Resource abundance. Detroit has $17.65M in cap space, according to PuckPedia, but we don’t yet know how close they’ll be to the cap ceiling once Raymond and Seider (and Berggren) are signed. Regardless of the space they have, the Red Wings have a glut of prospects at each position and are well-positioned to be a player on any players that might come available midseason. It’s hard to speculate, but there are always significant names who find their way to the trade block during the year, and there can sometimes be limited suitors, whether cap space or return assets are the issue. I’m a believer that Detroit should use its prospect depth to find another proven commodity or two, similar to the DeBrincat trade last summer, as they’ll still have plenty to plug into holes that arise as the rebuild progresses.
10. The best is yet to come. My final reason for optimism may be the most important. Most of the noise around the rebuild seems to suggest that it’s nearly over. Once again, Raymond and Seider are the only two players drafted by Yzerman on the roster right now. The cavalry is still yet to come. I’m not sure if I can say the same about most of the other rebuilding teams in the division: Ottawa (virtually all of their top prospects already in the NHL), Montreal (a lot coming on defense, not as much up front) or Buffalo (top talent hitting their prime but not quite pushing them forward yet).
Perhaps the dumbest exercise a fan can do is list their team’s future lines as if every prospect will hit as projected. This never happens; go back 15, 10, 5 years to any organizational prospect ranking, and you’ll find that even with the top teams, more players did not pan out than did. With that said, we’ll perform this exact exercise to close this post out.
While I know it will age poorly, I think between the pieces already (or soon-to-be) in place and the sheer volume of options to fill the remaining holes — along with trades and free agency that is surely to help plug gaps and misses — that the Red Wings are still well-positioned to continue climbing the ladder. There’s a world in which in 2-3 years, we’re looking at:
X – Larkin – Raymond
Mazur – Danielson – Brandsegg-Nygard
Rasmussen – Kasper – X
X – Veleno – X
And there are plenty of candidates to plug those two top-nine holes, namely DeBrincat if he sticks around, but also the recent swings at talent Detroit has taken in the draft in Max Plante, Dmitri Buchelnikov, Dylan James, Jesse Kiiskinen or Ondrej Becher, with the likes of Amadeus Lombardi, Red Savage, Elmer Soderblom, Emmitt Finnie or Noah Dower Nilsson still in the mix, among others. It just seems like a pretty solid floor that can easily be improved with the number of lottery tickets still working their way through the system, and obviously trade/free agency as needed.
Looking at defense, we see a core shaping up like this:
Edvinsson – Seider
X – Sandin-Pellikka
Johansson – X
Again, I caution patience that not every prospect will work out; Detroit’s defensive group once looked loaded with Xavier Ouellet, Ryan Sproul, Mattias Backman and Nick Jensen all arriving to a group already featuring Brendan Smith and Danny DeKeyser.
But the Red Wings do have a trio of early second-round picks that will be ready to push for jobs in a year or two between William Wallinder, Shai Buium and Antti Tuomisto, along with some player on a little bit of a longer timeline with Anton Johansson, Brady Cleveland and John Whipple. Are these likely all to be future Red Wings defensemen? They are not, but there are plenty of early-round stabs progressing at a good pace right now.
This may have been an overly-detailed look, but to bring it all home, I feel I’ve laid out a case that while this summer didn’t go perfectly for the Red Wings, the losses feel justified when looking at the bigger picture and the team hasn’t handcuffed itself from pivoting as necessary as the process continues to evolve over the next few seasons. While I’m hoping for a more consistent team performance overall, I think we’re looking at an exciting 2024-25 campaign with plenty of potential areas for growth, and I can’t wait for camp to kick off in a couple of weeks.
