Detroit Red Wings Off-Season Review (2024)
Honestly, I’m not sure what I’m going to say in this article. This off-season I’ve found myself rather conflicted about the “Yzerplan”. There have been some real highs this off-season, but also probably the lowest of lows Yzerman has had while running this organization. That said, I do feel optimism for this upcoming season. So, let’s dig into why.
Let’s start with the lows as that’s how the off-season started. Defense prospect Andrew Gibson was sent to Nashville for Jesse Kiiskinen and a 2024 second-round pick. I don’t have a huge problem with that trade. I would have rather kept Gibson as he was rather promising, but we also have such a logjam at defense that something had to give. Meanwhile, Kiiskinen is a forward prospect who puts pucks in the net, and frankly, they need prospects with a high goal-scoring ceiling. So, Nashville got a much-needed promising defensive prospect and the Red Wings got a much-needed goal-scoring forward prospect. Overall a win-win even if I would’ve preferred to hold on to Gibson. Now, what was bad was what the Red Wings did with the second-round pick: they used it to pay San Jose into taking Jake Walman. That is inexcusable. That is horrible asset management. He’s the team’s second-best defender and you had to pay San Jose to take him, something that blindsided Walman, and other GMs have said they didn’t know this was happening and would’ve given the Red Wings something for him. Dumping him for cap like that is downright inexcusable and shows how poor of a job Yzerman has done at managing the cap since returning to Detroit if that’s what he had to do. The reality is he has continually overpaid depth players while pinching pennies with star players. That’s not sustainable and puts your organization in a tough place. No, seriously, how on earth was Justin Holl getting paid the same as Jake Walman? First off, Holl should never have been signed and I hope last season was enough to get fans to stop the “Justin Holl is Larry Murphy 2.0” talk. He never was and not every maligned defender in an Original Six team is a victim of a “Larry Murphy Situation”. That includes Trouba who I am quite glad the Red Wings did not trade for (there’s a reason why he was consistently moved to the third line: he sucks). Second, Holl should not have gotten that much money or term. Paying him and giving him the same term as the team’s second-best defender, Jake Walman is outrageous. Now, I know the counterargument to this: Jake Walman played poorly in the second half of the season. Frankly, I find that argument to be terrible when we know he was injured and later ended up sick with the rest of the team. Total shocker that injured and sick players often play poorly. His play when injured should not be an excuse for poor asset management. This Walman trade is easily the worst move Yzerman has ever made and hopefully, it remains the worst. I know I was a bit scathing in this section and many Red Wings fans are probably already off to the races to bash me or call this a “Stevie Y hit piece”. I have no interest in hearing your whining about this section. We all know that if the Ottawa Senators had done what Yzerman did to Walman, you’d be roasting Ottawa forever. Anytime a Senators fan tried to troll you this would be brought up as a trump card to prove Detroit was better run. A good rule of thumb is: if you’d roast any other GM for making the same move, do it for your own. Stevie Y does not deserve the benefit of the doubt when making obviously terrible moves. I know so many are “reserving judgment”. Stop it. You’re intellectually dishonest when we all know you would’ve poured judgment already on any other team who did this. To wrap this up: there is no outcome that would’ve made this move ok. It’s terrible asset management. Even if getting Connor McDavid was the result, it wouldn’t have made managing your assets poorly even remotely an ok thing to do. It’s past time this fanbase stopped excusing every questionable or downright poor decision Yzerman makes. Two things can be true at once: this organization is headed in the right direction and Stevie has done a remarkable job building the organization back up from the ruins and he’s also quite capable of making questionable and downright terrible moves.
Now we come to the draft. I want to say that I’m proud of you all. You restrained yourselves from calling for Yzerman to be fired over a fifth-round pick this year. For those who aren’t Red Wings fans, yes, that actually happened. Last year a large portion of the Red Wings fanbase called for Yzerman to be fired because he selected Kevin Bicker. Apparently, selecting him in the fifth round was just a bridge too far for some fans and was worth calling for his head over. These fans are unhinged and I’m pretty certain literally nothing could make them happy. The Red Wings could win the President’s Trophy and Stanley Cup, Cossa the Vezina and Conn Smythe, Seider the Norris, Raymond the Hart and Selke, Buchelnikov the Calder, Lalonde the Jack Adams, and Yzerman the Jim Gregory all in one season, and these fans would still find something to complain about. Their favorite thing to post about is the “Yzerscam” or “Yzerfraud” and literally every move (except signing Patrick Kane) is a bad one, according to them. Even then they still whine about signing Patrick Kane because it’s only a one-year contract. But, I’m getting ahead of myself. Every draft pick is bad. Every signing and trade is disastrous. Dylan Larkin shouldn’t be captain and needs to be traded. He’s soft. Lucas Raymond is a turnover machine. Moritz Seider is an all-time bust and Cossa is a bum. Berggren is the franchise savior and mean old Yzerman just hates him for being a Holland pick. Danielson is a third-line center, at best. All the Red Wings do is draft low-ceiling 200-foot players like Michael Brandsegg-Nygård. Yeah, now we’re finally getting to this year’s draft, but don’t worry, my rant isn’t over yet. I’m sick and tired of the behavior of this fanbase and I’m letting it out in this article (there’s a reason why I’m more consistently not posting about the Red Wings on social media and saving opinions for this newsletter: this fanbase is toxic). So, with the 15th overall pick the Detroit Red Wings selected their next great disappointment: Brandsegg-Nygård. An absolute bum who only brings defense. Just ignore his shooting ability and that if he adds a few more pounds he could be a legit power forward. Ignore the fact that he has the ceiling of a 30-or-more goal scorer in a season. He’s a bum. “Yzerscam” Twitter, Facebook, and Reddit have declared it so. Should’ve taken one of the guys with a million and one red flags (Cole Eiserman and Trevor Connelly). Ok, look. I wish they would’ve gone with someone with a higher ceiling. Personally, I was rooting for them to select Michael Hage. I strongly believe he could be the next Dylan Larkin. That said, Brandsegg-Nygård is still a very good pick, especially at 15, who does have top-line potential. Probably more likely to top out on the second line, but hey, Detroit has Raymond for the top line. So as long as he’s a second-line player (which I do think is quite likely), I’m happy. He’s a guy who I could see scoring thirty goals a season in his prime. He’s got a high hockey IQ with great puck-handling skills and is a top-tier defender. It’s players like him who win playoff games. Seriously, it’s not a bad pick. Moving on to the rest of the draft, frankly, I don’t have any strong opinions because once you get out of the first round, the likelihood of getting an NHL player falls off and keeps falling off. You’re basically praying for some luck once you get past the first 32 picks. I like taking a swing on Max Plante and am genuinely baffled at the consistent complaining and bashing I see from writers and fans alike for selecting him. I strongly disagree with people claiming he has a low ceiling and find his playmaking to be too good to pass up. Outside him, I don’t have any real opinions on the players taken later in the draft.
Finally, we come to free agency. The best way to sum up the Red Wings free agency decisions is that they’re definitively worse offensively but also much better defensively. Last season their offense often looked like one you’d see from a legitimate Stanley Cup contender. This year you’re probably not going to see that. That said, I do think the offense will still be good and one of a legitimate playoff team. Lucas Raymond showed flashes of elite talent in the second half of last season. We already knew he was a clutch player, but seeing him just take over games and dominate the way he did at times was something not yet seen. If he takes the next step and makes those flashes into something more consistent, you’re looking at a genuine superstar who helps fill the void left by ridding of Jake Walman, Shayne Gostisbehere, David Perron, and Daniel Sprong. All were key offensive contributors and the loss of them (offensively) is massive. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not sad to see Gostisbehere or Sprong go, they simply did not put up enough points to make up for how much of a liability they were defensively. The Walman trade as mentioned earlier does hurt. Perron, on the other hand, I’m more mixed on. He did bring value to the table, including (briefly) saving the season, his grit, and leadership. That said, I’m glad he didn’t come back if Detroit would’ve had to pay him like Ottawa did. In addition, I’m good without his idiotic late-game penalties that cost the team a good number of points. Seriously, the guy can be a real bonehead and I’m not going to lie: I’m going to enjoy watching him screw Ottawa out of points. Anyway, back to the original point. So, if Raymond can take the next step and be the star the team needs, that helps a lot. But it’s not just him who needs to raise their level of play: Alex DeBrincat does as well. It would be nice if he decided to show up for more than just the first nine games of the season this time around. I’m not even asking for 40 goals. I’m just asking for him to not score 90% of his goals in the first nine games of the season. Spread it out a bit more. If that happens, that once again helps fill a void. In addition, Patrick Kane is back and I would expect having a full season of him, along with more recovery time, will only be beneficial. He was another clutch performer for the team and he made his teammates better. Watching him anchor the second-line for a full season I think will only benefit the team and make for a better top-six than the team had last season. Of course, I can’t go without mentioning Tarasenko who is a much-needed top-six talent. Sure, he’s abysmal defensively which isn’t ideal, but I’d imagine he’d be on the top line with Larkin and Raymond who are defensively responsible, so hopefully that would mitigate the damage somewhat. Speaking of defense, let’s get into that right now. They did bring back Fischer and then went out and signed Tyler Motte, who are both defensively responsible forwards, to try to help out the blue line a little more this year (seriously, the team’s defenders were hung out to dry last season). That said, adding Tarasenko does harm the defensive upgrade this team was looking for and Berggren will as well, assuming he isn’t traded. So, in regard to the forward group’s defensive abilities, I’m not really sure it’s actually all that much better defensively, but if at least one or two of Mazur, Kasper, or Danielson make the opening night lineup, it might be. Personally, I’m predicting two prospect forwards to make the opening night lineup: Mazur and Danielson. Both will help the forward group defensively and offensively. Yes, even Danielson will help the team offensively. His playmaking is underrated and his shooting is getting better. If both make the roster, it is definitely a more well-rounded forward core than last season. Sure, the top six may be as poor defensively as it was last year, but the bottom six would be much improved.
Now, getting to the actual defense, those departing are Walman and Gostisbehere, and replacing them are Simon Edvinsson, Erik Gustafsson, and Albert Johansson. Defensively, that is a massive upgrade. Admittedly, a lot of that upgrade is “addition by subtraction” if you get what I’m saying. But it’s also a massive downgrade offensively. Walman scored a lot of goals and Ghost put up a lot of points. The blue line is going to be worse offensively, a lot worse. But it also will be far better defensively, like, outside Petry and Holl who will almost certainly be rotating on the third line, I don’t see any defenders who are poor defensively. Now, I am nervous about relying so heavily on young talent in a year the team should be making the playoffs, Edvinsson and Johansson, but it had to happen after they got blocked from making the roster last season. Now, when it comes to defense, there’s also goaltending. This year the Red Wings brought in Cam Talbot to be the annual newly brought-in goaltender who will be subjected to a Vasilevskiy workload. Unlike the ones brought in previously to do that, he can actually handle it because he’s done it before. Hopefully, there won’t be a repeat of Nedeljkovic, Husso, and Lyon being run into the ground from a workload they weren’t prepared for. That alone makes Talbot an upgrade. Plus, he’s a massive upgrade from James Reimer who the team let walk. So goaltending has already improved. I also expect a bounce-back season from Husso, so I do feel this could be the best goaltending core the Red Wings have had in a long time. Steve Yzerman has already stated he’d prefer to only have two goaltenders on the roster this season so this is me predicting that the two goaltenders will be Talbot and Husso. Thanks for the memories Lyon, go and make some other team happy. Also, since I know there will be questions: Jack Campbell was almost certainly brought in to be Cossa’s backup in Grand Rapids. I wouldn’t expect to see much of him in Detroit unless there are injuries.
In the end, I actually don’t feel too worried about this group. Sure, it doesn’t excel in any areas like last season, but it’s far more well-rounded than last year. I’m not convinced this team is better, though, and if it is, they’re only slightly better. So, I’d say I feel this team is about equal to last year’s. That shouldn’t scare fans, though, as the only reason they missed the playoffs was because of an illness in March. That said, I would expect tougher competition from New Jersey and Buffalo than last year, making the road to the playoffs tougher. Hopefully, the combination of having graduated some top prospects along with quality veterans is enough to put our beloved Red Wings on top, though.
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