Four Existential Red Wings Questions at the Start of the Offseason
Questions about UFAs, prospects usage, goaltending health and playoff aspirations are exceedingly important at the start of the Red Wings' offseason
Mandatory Credit: Charles LeClaire-USA TODAY Sports - Four Existential Red Wings Questions at the Start of the OffseasonWith the dust settled on another season without playoff hockey in Detroit, the Red Wings enter a pivotal offseason where they’ll look to change their fate next year. But how exactly should they do that, and what other questions do they face at the onset of the offseason? Let’s consider the unknowns.
How should Detroit approach its UFAs?
The answer to this question will define the entire offseason for Steve Yzerman and Co. Twelve players who skated in at least a game for the Red Wings are free agents this offseason, including eight unrestricted free agents. Finding what to do with these puzzle pieces will determine a lot of what next year’s roster looks like, from the usage of younger players to the potential to sign other free agents come July.
The most pressing of these free agents is undoubtedly Patrick Kane, the 35-year-old superstar whose grand return from injury came with nearly point-per-game production. You could hardly ask for more from him — especially on a $2.75 million cap hit. But, Kane is almost certainly going to get a pay raise, and his scoring is highly valuable to a range of NHL teams. The Red Wings will have to pay him significantly more this offseason, especially with how openly Kane has approached his free agency without committing to a Detroit return.
In any other season, the Red Wings might have ponied up. But they have to re-sign Lucas Raymond and Moritz Seider, who will both fetch big contracts. There’s not a lot of cap room to throw around.
“(I’ll) kind of get a rough idea — if I can't figure it out sooner than later — of how much money we're going to have,” Yzerman said Friday. “Because we're getting close to being a cap team, and I gotta really start to think about the cap now. So, some decisions may be simply made based on what our cap situation is.”
I’ve called Kane a luxury item for this Detroit team in the past, and I stick with that sentiment. I’m in a similar thought process with defenseman Shayne Gostisbehere, whose 56-point season on the third pair was downright impressive. He could get far more salary than the $4.125 million he earned this season. Even if Yzerman has said that he wants to keep Gostisbehere around, I just don’t see it happening — not without impressive cap gymnastics.
Even some more established players seem difficult to retain. Fellow 35-year-old UFA David Perron provides a lot of veteran leadership for the Red Wings, but it’s hard to imagine he could stay on the roster without slicing his $4.75 million cap hit substantially.
Now, there’s a way to free up more cap space for these UFAs, which would prove even more impactful to the larger roster. Trading out depth defensemen in Justin Holl and Olli Maatta might free up $6.4 million in cap space for two players whose roles won’t be as pronounced this upcoming season. With rookie Simon Edvinsson proving so effective in his late-season call-up, and Albert Johansson needing to get a roster spot or else being lost to waivers, the Red Wings already have two excess defensemen from what they’ll need on the main roster. Shipping out Holl and Maatta might simplify the books at the cost of extra depth.
Other UFAs like Christian Fischer, Zach Aston-Reese, Austin Czarnik and James Reimer should make for easier decisions should Detroit choose to keep them. They aren’t going to be expensive players, and Yzerman more so has to decide if he wants to commit playing time to them over younger faces. I’d bank on Fischer as the top priority to keep out of this group, and even Czarnik could provide usable depth like he did the last quarter of this season.
All in all, Yzerman’s UFA strategy is going to shape a lot of what next season’s team looks like. In order to be a playoff contender, in order to build the most competitive roster he can, he’s going to have to get the salary math right.
How does Detroit incorporate youth without getting worse defensively?
After a few years of maturation, some of Yzerman’s draft picks are finally pushing through to NHL competency. Edvinsson showed strengths in his call-up. In net, Sebastian Cossa is playing about as well as anyone could ask him to down in Grand Rapids. Meanwhile, Yzerman has little choice regarding Jonatan Berggren and Albert Johansson, who are almost guaranteed roster spots next year because otherwise they’re subject to waivers.
“Most notably or specifically, simply for the fact that they’ll need waivers next year we could expect or hope that Jonatan Berggren is on our team and having an impact. Albert Johansson another one,” Yzerman explained Friday. “And those are two guys that need waivers next year. And my opinion today, I wouldn't expect either of them to clear waivers, so we have to make room for them, and it'll be up to them as individuals to earn that spot, whatever spot in the lineup that they can.”
So when adding so much youth to the lineup, how does Detroit prevent young mistakes from making it a worse team?
Chief among the Red Wings’ philosophical priorities this offseason is finding a way to prevent so many goals against. Whether goaltending or the skaters out in front of it, Detroit was a poor defensive team — 24th in goals against average last season. Yzerman and Red Wings coach Derek Lalonde spoke to the need to shore up defensively in their end-of-season interviews last week.
“Ultimately, we have to become a better defensive hockey team, and it's the fundamentals of defending,” Yzerman said Friday. “I'm counting on our coaching staff to work with our players and our players to be determined to do that. It's not necessarily the system; it's the basic fundamentals of defending that at times this year we struggled with, and we need to address that again.”
But, that’s going to be difficult with so many young faces in the lineup. Good defensive play comes from age and experience more so than rote talent. It takes discipline and memory to defend well instead of the raw skills that might lead to scoring. So, it seems as if the Red Wings have their work cut out for them if they’re going to inject so much youth next season.
This can be mitigated through coaching, but again that takes time. Decision-making tendencies are hard to change without significant reps, and that’s what youth lacks when entering the lineup. That’s at no fault of their own — it’s a fact of life that teams have to make peace with when bringing their prospects up to the NHL level. However, it’s hard to imagine Detroit can make itself that much better defensively with young mistake-makers in the lineup. It can’t have its cake and eat it too.
Maybe buddying up young players with more established pros can help assuage some of the concerns. Maybe some risk-taking can be broken out of players’ games through a really good offseason of off-ice film and process attention. But, solving this issue will be essential to addressing the Red Wings’ roster necessities and tactical goals.
Can Detroit depend on a healthy Ville Husso?
Ville Husso just can’t catch a break. After a lower-body injury right before Christmas, Husso played one game in February before injuring himself again. The other week in a conditioning-stint start, he tweaked an injury again. On Thursday, he committed to an offseason of injury rehab and recovery to bring himself back to game shape.
But is this going to work? Can Detroit rely on Husso to be at least its backup goaltender next season without serious injury considerations?
I broke down this topic with a little more depth yesterday, but Husso’s health is a key consideration at this point in the offseason.
The Red Wings can’t wait around for him to get healthy. By the time anyone can get a proper read on that, it will be too late or too expensive to pick up a player to replace his lost workload. Yzerman is going to have to trust his gut and come up with a goaltending solution whether internal or external.
“All three of those guys at different points in the season had a very positive impact on us and played games that helped us win and put us in a position to almost make the playoffs,” Yzerman said Friday. “But having said that, they need to be better, we need to be better in all aspects of keeping the puck out of our net. Not only with our goalies, but our play defensively, collectively not just our D corps, our forwards as well. I think it's really my job — and it's not a headline making statement — but to try and look to see if I can improve our team in any which way, and I will do that at every position.”
Detroit probably needs another goaltender anyway given the nature of injuries, but having someone who can at least be a backup goaltender might overcome the potential absence of Husso in the future. Cap considerations might make this difficult, but addressing goaltending is a silently important issue for Detroit this offseason.
What can the Red Wings learn from the playoff teams?
Sixteen teams are in the playoffs right now, and the Red Wings are not among them. While they make offseason decisions, they have 16 different examples for how to get to the postseason they so desperately crave.
This isn’t to say that the Red Wings want to copy someone — in pro sports, teams are trying to innovate with what resources they have at their disposal. But, there are lessons they can look at from a variety of teams. These next few weeks, Detroit has the opportunity to study up and draw what it likes off of other teams.
Washington shows what talented goaltending can do for a team, while Florida shows what elite depth brings. Out west, Winnipeg has the kind of four-line depth that the Red Wings have, while Colorado has made the most of a game-breaking top line. These aren’t the be-all, end-all strengths of each team, but they’re ones that the Red Wings can look at and take notes for how they might approach the playoffs in the future.
Under their current construction, the teams riding an elite player or elite goaltender aren’t great comparables. But, I think a team like Winnipeg or Carolina are the most realistic comparables for what the Red Wings might want to look like. With adept goaltending and a whole lot of depth, the Jets were one of the better teams in the West this season by wins. They’re even hanging with the star-studded Avalanche so far. Carolina might lack a lot of scoring prowess, but it defends so well that it doesn’t have to score a whole lot. That stands almost opposite to the Red Wings, but it’s that defensive style that Detroit wants to implement more of in the future. Even if replication isn’t the goal here, education is.
Again, I’m not saying that the Red Wings are like these teams, but rather that they should look to employ some of the traits that these teams have succeeded with. Knowing how other teams succeed away from your own strengths is far better than copying a similar team’s philosophy bar for bar.
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