Three pressing roster questions and first crack at the Detroit Red Wings opening night lineup in 2023-24

The Detroit Red Wings will open the 2023-24 regular season in Newark.  It will be October 12th, and the Red Wings will be the Devils' guests at the Prudential Center in North Jersey.

We know that much for certain, but we don't yet know how Detroit will line up.  To start teasing out how that opening night line up will take shape, let's consider three organizing questions:

(1) How many players under the age of 23 will be in the opening night line-up in Newark?

(2) Is Andrew Copp still playing center with J.T. Compher's introduction into the line-up?

(3) Where do the new guys fit in on the blue line?

Question One: How many players under the age of 23 will be in the opening night line-up in Newark?

At this point, amongst under-23 players, there are two locks, one probable, and four hopefuls for the Red Wings' line-up on the first night of the season.

Mortiz Seider, 22, and Lucas Raymond, 21, have long since established themselves not just as NHL regulars but as featured players in Detroit.  The only possible impediment to their places on Derek Lalonde's line-up card is *knock on wood* health.

The probable is 22-year-old winger Jonatan Berggren.  Berggren played 67 NHL games a year ago, scoring 15 goals and giving 13 assists.  He plays a mature offensive game and had commendable two-way impacts as a first-year NHLer.  With the new off-season acquisitions, Berggren (not unlike Joe Veleno, who at 23 is just too old to qualify for this discussion) needs to establish his role within a re-shuffled and re-vamped forward group, but he should be on track to have comfortably done so by October 12th.

That leaves Elmer Soderblom (22), Simon Edvinsson (20), Carter Mazur (21), and Marco Kasper (19) as the hopefuls.  Within that context, it might be a bit harsh to Soderblom to only refer to him as a hopeful, considering his 20 NHL games played are twice as many as anyone else in that cohort.  (Edvisonsson has played nine, Kasper one, and Mazur none).

Still, the path for all four to play opening night looks difficult because of the arrival of Daniel Sprong, Klim Kostin, and Christian Fischer to fill bottom six roles, J.T. Compher slotting into the center depth chart, and Shayne Gostisbehere and Justin Holl joining the D corps.

This summer, Steve Yzerman has been explicit in his desire to remain patient with all four of these prospects, almost preferring there to be traffic between them and the NHL to ensure that the youngsters will have to earn NHL roster spots, rather than be handed them.

For fans who want to see Detroit's acclaimed crop of prospects perform at the NHL level, it might be frustrating to see the likes of Holl and Kostin crowding their path to that status.  

However, Yzerman believes that forcing those young players to earn their NHL regular status with strong play in training camp or Grand Rapids by out-competing proven players for those spots will yield the best outcomes for them: "I don't think the right approach is to just throw them out there," said Yzerman. "Let's let [them] earn that spot."

All the same, no team makes it any meaningful distance into the season without sustaining a few injuries along the way, which would help clear the path for any of Edvinsson, Mazur, Kasper, or Soderblom.  Further, all four should be able to thrive in GR to help illustrate the case for their NHL merit.

Question Two: Is Andrew Copp still playing center with J.T. Compher's introduction into the line-up?

With J.T. Compher joining the Red Wings forward ranks, at least in theory, Andrew Copp could move out to the wing, rather than remain in the center position he played in his first year in Detroit.

There might be a world in which Marco Kasper has a training camp so tremendous that he must start the season at the NHL level and playing center.  That would be a welcome development, but not an insignificant leap from Kasper.  Still, it's at least within the realm of possibility.

In that scenario, perhaps it would make sense to push Copp out to wing to add a bit more dynamism to the top six, with Veleno locking down the fourth center role (for which Copp and, in this hypothetical, Kasper are over-qualified). It's also possible that Compher flexes out to wing; Yzerman touted the ex-Avalanche's ability to play all three forward positions after signing him on the first of the month.

Despite those (reasonably) conceivable scenarios, the likeliest reality is that both Compher and Copp play center for the 2023-24 season.  As Copp and Compher age and Kasper and 2023 first rounder Nate Danielson mature, one or both of Copp and Compher could make that move, but that should be a few years away still.  That leaves the question of who will man the second line and who the third, and what the difference between those two roles will look like in practice.

Question Three: Where do the new guys fit in on the blue line?

In sketching out the Red Wings' '23-24 blue line, a top pair of Jake Walman and Moritz Seider seems an obvious starting point.  A year ago, Seider appeared to be in a sophomore slump after a Calder-winning rookie season until Derek Lalonde paired him with Walman.

There was nothing about Walman that suggested "top pair defenseman" when he was traded to Detroit from St. Louis in March of 2022, but he proved an effective foil for Seider.

Seider respected Walman's skating and his shoe game, and he appeared a different player with Walman by his side than he had in the early days of the season, languishing beside Ben Chiarot.

The comfort between Seider and Walman leaves newcomers Shayne Gostisbehere and Justin Holl, along with returning Red Wings Olli Maatta and Chiarot (as well as Edvinsson) to fill out Detroit's second and third pairs.  

In broad strokes, the two fresh faces profile more as "puck-movers," while Maatta and Chiarot tend more toward defense-first roles.  That would seem to suggest that the bottom two pairings will each consist of one first-year Red Wing and one returner.

Again, in the short term, the likeliest outcome leaves Edvinsson on the outside looking in to start the season, but there's no reason he cannot play his way into an opening night role with a strong training camp.

However those second and third pair take shape, this group should be the deepest Red Wing defense corps since the team's last playoff appearance.  

Check back tomorrow for a first crack at how Detroit might actually line up.