Is it Time to Worry about the Raymond and Seider Extensions?
There's a lot of time for the Red Wings to work out contracts with Lucas Raymond and Moritz Seider, but the delays up to this point show a lack of execution for Detroit's rebuild vision
A little over three weeks until training camp, the Detroit Red Wings and restricted free agents Moritz Seider and Lucas Raymond still haven't signed extensions with the team. Raymond is reportedly “not close” according to NHL insider David Pagnotta. Just as has been the case all summer, the two most important negotiations of the offseason remain wide open.
Up to now, it's been easy to take a patient view of these negotiations. Steve Yzerman regularly sweats out his players at the negotiating table, and the summer runs long. Even now, with 23 days to training camp and 44 to the season opener, there's plenty of time to get Raymond and Seider signed. With $17,648,194 in cap space, there's also plenty of money to go around, too.
But when exactly is it time to worry about their contract negotiations? Has it been time to worry all along, perhaps for a bigger reason?
The issue at hand is that these aren’t just normal contracts. They’re deals for two of Detroit’s most important players for the foreseeable future. Even if you aren't worried about the contracts themselves, the doubts these delays cast on Yzerman's rebuild vision are concerning. If Yzerman and his staff can't figure out how to sign two pillars of the future, that shows glaring issues in his ability to bring the rebuild to a head.
No matter which side is causing the delays, the result is the same. For players of Seider’s and Raymond’s importance, waiting them out shows that the Detroit front office either doesn’t have a solidified vision of its future on the cap sheets, or it can’t convince either player to make that vision come to light. The Red Wings knew that Raymond and Seider were going to demand hefty salaries. They knew that they'd have to come to haggle on contract term. Despite knowing all the details they'd have to work out, the Red Wings have responded with hesitation.
At the end of the day, Detroit has had all the time in the world to satisfy its two most important players and get these deals done. Instead, they're letting it all tick away with each day that passes.
Meanwhile, Detroit went into action everywhere but its two biggest needs. It signed Patrick Kane and Vladimir Tarasenko, two aging forwards that probably won’t be around longer than a couple years. It picked up Cam Talbot for a three-goalie rotation that Yzerman admittedly didn’t want. And for the reasons of cap hit and term, Detroit whiffed on every big-name free agent or trade asset on the market. It did everything but sign Seider and Raymond, opting to earmark funds for them while playing the waiting game.
"We set aside a certain amount of money in the budget for them," Yzerman said of his four RFAs on July 4. "And as free agency went along and we're trying to get our own guys signed, we had to tweak things a little bit. But what hasn't changed is what we think those four players are going to come in at. We will get contracts done with them, it's just a question of when and then what term do we actually do on all of them."
Nearly two months later, that question of "when" remains unanswered, and those reports of distance between both sides make it seem like "when" won't be anytime soon.
If the Red Wings had made moves that helped its long-term future, waiting around for "when" would be understandable, but doing so for the pieces to make Detroit a borderline wild card team neglects long-term needs for instant gratification. When the whole rebuild's selling point has been patience, abandoning that ideal now casts serious doubts on the Red Wings' ability to pull its plan together.
It might not be time to worry about Seider and Raymond’s extensions themselves, but it is time to be worried about the rebuild plan that they're a part of. Detroit's inability to sign them shows clear disconnects between its plans and its actions, and that's a bigger issue than any pair of contracts.
Editor's Note: This article has been updated in the first paragraph to attribute reports on Lucas Raymond's contract negotiations.
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