Eight forwards, rumored to be available, that Detroit could target for a draft day trade

Last Friday, the Blue Jackets acquired defenseman Damon Severson from the New Jersey Devils via a sign-and-trade that saw Severson and his new eight-year, $6.25 million contract exchanged for a third round pick that Columbus had previously acquired from Calgary. Severson was an unrestricted free agent, but by signing his new contract with his old team he allowed his new employer to add an extra year to his new deal. 

How does this affect the Red Wings? It illustrates the meager state of the forthcoming free agency market.

Without wishing to disrespect Severson (whom I’d rate somewhere between serviceable and effective), that his services were in such demand that Columbus felt it necessary to give up an asset and dole out an extra year of term to acquire him suggests that the available free agent talent on the blue line this summer is modest. 

Up front, the story is generally the same, with "journeyman" an appropriate label for most every forward on the unrestricted free agent market.

For the Red Wings, a team in need of an infusion of NHL-ready talent, the trade market looks much more palatable than free agency. Detroit is in possession of five first round picks and five seconds in the next three drafts and also has a robust pool of prospects and young players that might prove useful trade chips.

Ideal targets are young enough to not be purely “win now” acquisitions but also good enough to step into featured roles (i.e. top six forwards or top four defensemen). For a team in need of an offensive boost, what’s the point of trading for a player you don’t foresee improving on internal options near the top of the lineup?

The Wings could benefit from improved firepower and depth at forward and along the blue line, and a goalie wouldn’t be outside the realm of possibility either. Even if you consider Ville Husso a credible option as Detroit's number one goaltender moving forward, he (for the next two years at $4.75 million) is the only option in goal on an NHL contract.

In Part I of this piece, I’ll evaluate potential forward targets for Detroit, and in Part II, I’ll take a look at potential options along the blue line and in net.

The players discussed in both parts have all been (to some degree or another) named as potentially available. Some play for teams who seem to feel an imperative for change (specifically, Toronto and Winnipeg). Some are scorers with tenuous relationships to their current teams (looking at you, Clayton Keller). More than a few of them grew up in Metro Detroit. One is Erik Karlsson, who once again defies categorization. 

Pierre-Luc Dubois

Now topping Frank Seravalli’s “Trade Board” at Daily Faceoff, Dubois is perhaps the most attractive option available on the market. A productive, twenty-four-year-old, center who can credibly claim to drive play is not the type of player you expect to be made available.

Dubois is a restricted free agent and, perhaps inspired by Matthew Tkachuk’s maneuvering a summer ago, has made plain that he doesn’t perceive Winnipeg as his long-term home and wants a trade. His qualifying offer is $6 million, though securing him for years to come would likely require eclipsing that figure by some distance. According to a report from The Athletic’s Arpon Basu and Marc Antoine Godin, Dubois wants an eight-year extension, worth about $9 million per season.

On the ice, Dubois profiles as something between a first and second line center. He doesn’t have elite (i.e. 100-plus-point) offensive upside, but he moves play in the right direction for his team. Per MoneyPuck.com, the Jets registered 52.5% of the expected goals with him on the ice at 5-on-5 and scored 58.1% of the actual goals. 

Dubois broke into the NHL with Columbus as a nineteen-year-old in 2017-18.  since then, his only season below 50% xG came in 2019-20, so even if he isn’t a torrid scorer, Dubois could help Detroit become a more sound team at five-on-five straight away and begin to assuage a relative organizational weakness down the middle.

There are essentially two arguments against targeting Dubois. The first is that this exit from Winnipeg would be the second “force out” of his fledgling career, having previously asked his way out of Columbus. At last summer’s draft, his agent Pat Brisson mentioned a desire to eventually play for Montreal. A worst case scenario would be Detroit foregoing assets to acquire Dubois, only for the Sainte-Agathe-des-Monts, Québec native to determine that he does want to return to his home province after all and demand another trade.

The other argument against Dubois is that Detroit doesn’t necessarily need another player who is overqualified to be a number two center but not quite as prolific as the elite class of top-line centers around the league. Captain Dylan Larkin is somewhere around this conversation, and Marco Kasper (the team’s top center prospect) projects to wind up in the same vicinity.

In my estimation, neither of these considerations should be true deterrents. Steve Yzerman would not make a move for Dubois without the framework in place for a long-term extension, one that Dubois would have to approve of. Maybe Dubois has no interest in Detroit as a destination, but if Yzerman were able to sell him on the Wings project enough to get a deal in place, I wouldn’t worry about the prospect of the player getting restless again.

As for the second consideration, I don’t think it would actually be a problem to have three quality, two-hundred foot centers, even if none of them were elite scorers. Instead, that sounds to me like the backbone of a potentially dominant team, and even if Yzerman eventually did determined that there was a redundancy at the position, Kasper could become a quality trade chip himself.

The cost of pulling off such a move is a bit tricky to say. Because Dubois has requested (read: demanded) the trade, Winnipeg’s hand is forced, and it’s unlikely they can recoup the true value of a player of his caliber and age. However, because twenty-four-year-old top six centers come available so seldom, Detroit would presumably be in a crowded field to secure his services with serious bidding war potential. The best case scenario for the Wings would be that Winnipeg decides to set a true tear-it-all-down rebuild this summer (more on this later in our list), which would allow Detroit to propose a package of almost exclusively futures to bring him in.

Mitch Marner or William Nylander

I’ve grouped Marner and Nylander together because the wind seems to be blowing toward one of them being traded this summer, but not the other. They are not identical players, but at least similar and the logistics of a trade with Toronto for either, at least in broad strokes, would be as well.

Marner is among the best wingers in the league. He finished the ‘22-23 season with 99 points in 80 games and is an elite defensive player to boot. His dynamic stickhandling and vision make him one of the most exciting players to watch in the league. He is nominated for the Selke, threatening to become the first winger to collect the award since Jere Lehtinen in 2003. However, another disappointing postseason and a $10.9 million cap hit for two more seasons have Marner on the trade block or at least in the rumor mill.

Nylander has never been quite as prolific as Marner as far as point production goes, but he is the one member of the Leafs who can say with a straight face that the postseason has been kind to him in recent years. Even as his team suffered one ignominy after the next, Nylander’s game has translated well—his uniquely smooth skating affording him the ability to get to the net in a way that Marner or Auston Matthews have never seemed to do with any consistency in the playoffs. In the regular season, Nylander posted career highs in goals (forty) and assists (forty-seven); with more consistent looks on a top line and top power play unit (which would likely come in Detroit), it’s not hard to imagine Nylander eclipsing those figures.

With one year left on his contract at $6.96 million against the cap, Nylander is another player the Wings won’t want to chase without an agreement in place for an extension. Nylander’s value has long since surpassed his current cap hit, so he will presumably be interested in a robust raise for his next contract.

Maybe new Leafs general manager Brad Treliving will decide that he wants to keep both players, but if either does find himself in a trade, it will have to be for a package that can help Toronto next season. Of all the possibilities for the Leafs’ future, an out-and-out rebuild is not an option, so Treliving can’t part with either Marner or Nylander unless it’s for players who can help push the team deeper into the playoffs straight away.

That's where a potential deal with Detroit gets complicated.  Either of Lucas Raymond or Moritz Seider could be attractive targets from a Leafs perspective. The former could provide a cap-strapped team with a bit more youth and flexibility; the latter would be a major upgrade on the right side of the defense and bring the kind of physicality the Leafs seem to lack. 

If I’m Steve Yzerman, Seider would be a non-starter, but I could probably be persuaded for a package built around Raymond, but that may well have to include Simon Edvinsson as well, at which point it becomes a more difficult decision.

At the end of the day, I think either Marner or Nylander could be a worthwhile addition to this Detroit roster. I don’t buy the idea that Marner’s game is fundamentally unsuitable for the postseason; Patrick Kane was among the most reliable playoff scorers of the first half of the 2010s playing a similar style. With more playoff experience, I’d expect him to grow more comfortable, and, even if they haven’t been evenly distributed, he still has a commendable forty-seven points in fifty career postseason games. Still, I have a slight preference for Nylander, whose finishing ability and gifts in transition I rate a bit more highly than Marner’s playmaking and surreptitious defensive stick.

There’s serious potential here for something that works for both sides, but, for Detroit, the necessary return for either player will sting.

Kyle Connor, Alex DeBrincat, or Brock Boeser

Connor, DeBrincat, and Boeser are lumped together here because all of them fit broadly into the category of “pure goalscorer.” To varying degrees, they are established NHL snipers with no track record of defensive reliability or strong underlying numbers. Connor and Boeser are twenty-six; DeBrincat is twenty-five.

Connor is the most productive of the three, and, for that reason, probably the least likely to be dealt. Winnipeg has always struggled to attract free agents, so giving up a top producer with three years of team control remaining is unlikely, unless, as suggested above, they commit to an all-out tear down. In that case, or if he demands out, Detroit would be a natural destination for the Shelby Township-born, University of Michigan-trained winger. 

‘22-23 was a down year for Connor, and he still managed thirty-one goals. The year prior, he netted forty-seven. He might not contribute much besides goals, but for a team starved of offense, that’s far from nothing. Because he is on a reasonable ($7.14 million AAV) deal with multiple years remaining, Connor wouldn’t come cheap. I could imagine such a trade featuring Filip Zadina heading back to Winnipeg, but that would be just a starting point and might not work as the best asset in the exchange.

DeBrincat is coming off a disappointing season in Ottawa: twenty-seven goals. He arrived last summer via a trade with Chicago at the draft, with the Sens hoping for a slightly more veteran complement to their home grown crop of forwards. For one reason or another, it hasn’t been a fit, and now DeBrincat wants a change of scenery. The catch for any potential DeBrincat trade is that his qualifying offer is $9 million. That means whoever acquires him will want to lock-in an immediate extension (the AAV of which is unlikely to approach that number) and also that Ottawa cannot expect much of a return for him. According to reporting from Sportsnet's Elliotte Friedman, Detroit is among DeBrincat's desired destinations.

In that regard and in the fact that he is from Farmington Hills, Detroit could make some sense here. However, Yzerman has never shown much of a predilection for undersized pure scorers, and, while it’s far from impossible, I wouldn’t expect DeBrincat to be the player to break that trend.

Boeser is probably the most complicated evaluation of the three snipers here. Through seven seasons in the NHL (the first just a nine-game, post-Frozen Four cameo), he hasn’t matched the twenty-nine goals he scored as a twenty-year-old in his first full season of pro hockey. Goal totals of eighteen, twenty-three, twenty-three, and sixteen over the last four years do not exactly inspire confidence in a player you intend to acquire for his scoring touch. 

However, Vancouver has been far from a stable or productive environment during his tenure, and Boeser has been open about the way the declining health and eventual passing of his father impacted his game. So, the idea would be that Boeser could be had at modest cost and then bounce back with a fresh start at a franchise with clearer direction.

Of these three, I see Connor and Boeser as more attractive than DeBrincat. Even if a Connor trade is unlikely and costly, Connor is by some distance the best of these players and on a reasonable contract. If he can be had, it’s a move worth making. 

Boeser, meanwhile, would depend more on price, but, if Yzerman can bring him in without giving away any premium assets, it strikes me as a bet with potential to bear serious fruit. 

While I don’t doubt that DeBrincat can return to more productive form, I don’t love the fit, which, when combined with a slightly thorny contract situation, would leave me inclined to stay away.

Clayton Keller

Fresh off an eighty-six point season, Clayton Keller is another attractive trade option for the Red Wings. Because of the general uncertainty shrouding the Arizona Coyotes, the twenty-four-year-old winger may ask out of the Desert.

Keller is one of the league’s top playmaking wingers, and Arizona has been 4, 5.6, and 6.9% better than with him than without him at even strength by xG% over the last three years.

Keller’s contract runs through the ‘27-28 season at $7.15 million per year. For a point-a-game player, that’s quite a bargain. As such, depending on just how much pressure he exerts to get out or to choose his destination, Keller has the potential to fetch a serious return—probably one composed of a cornucopia of top prospects and high draft picks.

It can be tricky to evaluate a player within the context of a franchise as listless as the 2021-22 Arizona Coyotes. It often feels just as easy to argue that the player will flourish if paired with more gifted teammates as it does to contend that they will suffer from not having such a high percentage of their new team’s attack flow through them. 

In Keller’s case, I’m inclined to believe that he can excel outside of Arizona. I think in a perfect world, the Wings would want a target whose profile skews a bit more toward sniper than playmaker, but Keller’s skillset is too effective to ignore.

Much like with Dubois, players this good and this young come available but so often. This is a player that could provide Detroit with a serious jolt offensively, and one Yzerman must lend serious consideration should he prove available.

Nikolaj Ehlers

Stylistically, Nik Ehlers is not far off from William Nylander, though of course plying his craft in Winnipeg in lieu of Toronto comes without so much fanfare. 

Ehlers is a phenomenal set-up man, as good as any player in the league at flipping the ice in an instant to create a scoring chance for one of his line mates out of nothing.  Both as a passer and puck-carrier, he is the epitome of dynamism in transition, and his in-zone playmaking leaves nothing to be desired.

Despite these skills, Ehlers has a longstanding history (across multiple head coaches) of being deemed the scapegoat for a forward group that has played precious little defense in recent seasons. 

As much as fellow Jets like Blake Wheeler and Mark Schiefle (both of whom were not listed as quality options for Detroit here in large part because of their defensive shortcomings) have been similarly lackadaisical on the back check, it seems only Ehlers has had to pay penance for this offense.For that reason, it would seem to hold water that Winnipeg will be ready to move on this summer, whether they want to compete for a playoff spot next season or not. 

Ehlers has two seasons remaining on his contract at an even $6 million cap hit. It’s an attractive contract, especially when it would seem reasonable to expect his counting stats to improve on a new team where he played consistently on the top line and power play in much the same way I mentioned with Nylander.

When balancing acquisition cost and potential value added to the lineup, I think Ehlers may be the most attractive option of all the wingers listed here. He is great at what he does, what he does is something Detroit needs, he comes with two years of team control, he’s a proven player but at twenty-seven he has some prime left, and I wouldn’t expect it to require a major haul to bring him in.