Looking at the Red Wings potential roster in 2026-27 reveals the areas Detroit’s roster needs to improve

You know what seems like a useless exercise? Predicting an NHL roster three years into the future. I mean, c’mon, with all the free agent signings and prospect call-ups and retirements and injuries, it’s so hard to get a read of what a team will look like. I mean, really, who would even try to do such a thing? Seriously. Ha. Ha ha ha.

Anyway, I’m going to do my best to predict what the Red Wings will look like in 2026-27. That’s right, three years from now, when rookies turn to vets and when vets might be alumni. At the core of this task, I seek to find out what weaknesses the Red Wings have, highlighting the areas they should address this offseason to fix those issues.

This projected roster will be wrong in 2026-27. Undoubtedly. But, the core of the roster should give us a general sense at what flaws and strengths the roster might have.

And before we get started, proper credit for inspiration has to go to The Athletic’s Max Bultman and Corey Pronman, who did a five-year Red Wings projection back in 2021. I’m not so bold a risk-taker so I'm aiming for three seasons out, but also check out their work here.

Without further ado, the future:

The Forwards

The Red Wings have a lot of forward options in the future with prospects such as Marco Kasper, Nate Danielson and Carter Mazur projecting to be NHLers by the time this 2026-27 roster assembles. Detroit will also have Dylan Larkin, Andrew Copp, J.T. Compher and Alex DeBrincat signed to their current contracts plus Michael Rasmussen on the $3.4 million extension he signed during this season. And, I think it’s safe to say that Jonatan Berggren, Lucas Raymond and Joe Veleno are still on the roster, multiple years into the extensions they will probably sign this present offseason.

Now, I’m not banking on this lineup looking 100% like I have it drawn up here, but here’s a light depth chart for what the Red Wings might look like using the Armchair GM tool from CapFriendly.

What are we looking at here? Well, the Red Wings have a solid first line in DeBrincat-Larkin-Raymond that showed moments of greatness this season. It also has most of its current center depth intact, with Kasper and probably Danielson mixing in. I’m projecting that in either his rookie or sophomore year, Danielson’s speed and puck skills might work him into a middle-six scoring role, with Berggren also in a similar position.

Now, what isn’t in this roster? I think it's fairly clear the Red Wings need a center upgrade, particularly for the second line. The Red Wings would be far better off if they could field a shutdown third line of Rasmussen, Compher and Copp, while putting Danielson and Berggren with a scoring center on the second line. Most importantly, they need someone to take the burden off Larkin to be the team’s only scoring center, a precarious position as Detroit’s struggles without Larkin indicated. Detroit general manager Steve Yzerman didn’t shy away from addressing depth in his end-of-season press conference Friday.

Particularly, Yzerman observed the need for better scoring depth at the center position. “When Dylan’s out or we lose a significant offensive player, we need more depth to make up for that. And then again, we need to be better defensively to compensate as well. Nate Danielson (we) drafted a year ago and Marco Kasper the year previous to that. We think they’re good young prospects, really happy with how they’re coming. They’re not ready to play yet. I’m not ruling anything out for next year, but I think in time, we’re gonna be really solid down the middle.”

Might Danielson or Kasper prove to be the kind of scoring center that Yzerman is talking about? That’s yet to be seen. Kasper hasn’t been so automatic as an AHL scorer this season, while Danielson has yet to go pro. There’s time on the clock, but how exactly that unfolds is hard to predict. I think it will be easier for Danielson to translate his rush offense and speed to the NHL level as a winger to start, much like Larkin once did. The Red Wings have the center depth to bring him along slowly, and if they’re a playoff-focused team there won’t be so much license to let him fail forward in the position. Kasper’s game includes a much more notable defensive flavor, so I don’t expect him to have as many of the concerns as Danielson in becoming an NHL center. It’s the defensive side of the game that proves harder for prospects to learn, when the free-wheeling control use to create goals disappears due to the elevated play of competition. In other words, Kasper won’t have as many bad habits to adjust away from. But, expecting him to be a big-time scorer is a generous prognostication.

Elsewhere, the fourth line could also use some tinkering, though that’s of less concern. I think players like Mazur and Veleno could make up pieces of that line, but the Red Wings still need another player here. That’s not really a position to plan for in the future, though I think an easy solution exists in re-signing Christian Fischer after a successful first season in Detroit. In addition, more depth could help flesh out this roster. The kind of signings like Fischer and Daniel Sprong were this past offseason are important adds for a team that wants to do something in the playoffs. The exact makeup of depth pieces will be largely dependent on free agency and prospect progression, but it is still an area the Red Wings will need to find a solution.

The Defense

While the forwards have some adjustments to make, the defense corps looks outstanding in three seasons. With Seider signed to this offseason’s likely extension and Simon Edvinsson almost certaint o be in a full-time role, I’m going to project a future top pairing where those two talented trees are playing alongside one another. Seider certainly lobbied for it in his interview Thursday, when he dreamed a little about what such a pairing could look like. 

“I would hope to maybe get a chance playing with him one day. Obviously, I think it would be pretty cool, and then you just got to see if that works out or not. I think it could be a pretty cool D pair for the Red Wings,” Seider said Thursday. “But I was very impressed. I wasn’t really surprised, to be honest. I think everyone kind of knew what he was gonna bring to our team. I mean, he’s a big strong skater. He can pass the puck really well, isn’t afraid of blocking shots, of throwing his body around and also has a little dynamic element for his offense, and that’s definitely something that helped us.”

At the very least, both have the sort of defensive impact that will take workload off of the other. They both can block shots, deliver hits and step up into the play on offense. As much as splitting them might lead to better overall results, together they might form a shutdown defense pairing that I think would stand among the NHL’s best.

In addition to Seider and Edvinsson, Jake Walman, Justin Holl and Ben Chiarot will remain under contract through the 2026-27 season. This will mark their last season, freeing up significant cap space for an impending Edvinsson extension that offseason. But, they should also prove to be serviceable pieces of the lineup barring significant regression or injury.

But even with so many core pieces, the biggest change for this blue line will be the implementation of Axel Sandin Pellikka, the Swedish blueliner whose U19 season nearly broke long-standing scoring records in the SHL. With his offensive impact, it’s hard to imagine that he won’t be a second-pairing player by 2026, and I’d slot Walman next to him as a sort of defensive-minded foil to make a more complete pairing. This leaves Chiarot and Holl as the third pairing — a pretty respectable pairing for the distant future. With Albert Johansson projected to get some playing time with Detroit this upcoming 2024-25 season, I predict he might be the seventh D on this 2026-27 squad. This could change if he has a really impressive rookie year, or if the Red Wings move on from him through waivers or a trade. But for now, he projects to be depth.

What I like most about this blue line is the way that it brings in the future pillars of the blue line and marks the end of an era for veterans brought in during the past couple transitory years for the Red Wings’ defense. With Edvinsson due for an extension and Sandin Pellikka likely to follow him in short order, Detroit should have the necessary cap freed up to re-sign them. For someone who loves clean transitions, this transition is gorgeous to me.

Such talent in Seider, Edvinsson and Sandin Pellikka marks the long-awaited payoff of the Red Wings’ draft hauls, something that has seemed to drag on forever during this rebuild. These three project to be bona fide impact players. Detroit’s blue line could be scary to play against, especially if Yzerman can use his remaining cap space to complement them with talented depth.

The Goaltending

Oh man, the goaltending. Well, the Red Wings have two goalies under contract through 2026-27 — highly-touted prospect Sebastian Cossa and recent signee Carter Gylander. I’d bank on Cossa being given an opportunity to be Detroit’s starter by 2026-27, though goaltending development is fickle and hard to predict. However, the backups for Cossa are a little mysterious.

Maybe there’s a world where Trey Augustine goes pro after his sophomore season, spending a year in Grand Rapids before becoming the Big Club’s backup. If this happens in smooth order, you better go buy a Powerball ticket because it would require a whole lot of good fortune.

I think the more realistic world is that one of Ville Husso or Alex Lyon stick around Detroit as backups, or otherwise Yzerman hits free agency for a backup who can take some of the burden off Cossa. He’s a fan of passing the torch from veterans to rookies slowly, as Tampa Bay star Andrei Vasilevskiy backed up Ben Bishop for two seasons before he became the outright starter. Bishop was a talented swing by Yzerman at the time, and he proved to be an excellent starter for those early competitive Lightning teams. But the purpose of this example is to show that Cossa won’t just get the green light to be Detroit’s starter. Yzerman seems likely to take the goaltending situation with caution. Bank on conservative roster management more than the brash risk of riding a rookie.

Conclusions

So what did we learn about the Red Wings’ roster here? Well, a lot of what Yzerman has already addressed. Detroit needs another scoring center, and it needs its rookies to live up to the hype some way or another. In the realm of the less-discussed, the Red Wings need more longevity in their goaltending plan, specifically the plan for who plays outside of Cossa. Finally, the year-to-year puzzle of depth will require attention, though planning for this three years out is a fool’s errand.

Ultimately, Detroit is in an advantageous position to be a contender by 2026-27, driven by what could be an elite blue line and a very deep bottom six. This is the mark of a rebuilding team coming of age, a rebuilt home once stripped to the studs, now painted and filled with life again. It’s a rosy picture, even if it might not look exactly like this come 2026-27.

That’s the thing about dreaming — it’s allowed to be rosy. But if Detroit keeps up its current progression, rosy might just be accurate.

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