J.T. Compher signs a five-year, $25.5 million contract with the Detroit Red Wings; the signing signals an obvious organizational priority: Two-way centermen

J.T. Compher, late of the Colorado Avalanche, signed a five-year, $25.5 million contract with the Red Wings this afternoon.  

The deal brings the 28-year-old centerman to Detroit, where he will slot in behind Dylan Larkin on the Wings' center depth chart.  The contract represents 6.1% of the current salary cap, and, for the time being, we don't have details on any movement or trade protection.

Compher, who spent his college years in Ann Arbor playing for the University of Michigan, arrives in Detroit fresh off a breakout season in Colorado.  By the boxcar stats, he didn't jump off the page: 17 goals and 35 assists for 52 assists.  The latter two figures represent career highs, but, perhaps more importantly, he also set a career high in ice time at 20:32 a game.

That bump in playing time points to the source of his breakout: Compher proved over the course of the 2022-23 season that he can thrive as a number two center for a contending team.  Prior to last year, Compher had been an effective, defense-first player in a third-line role.  In that capacity, he helped Colorado to a Stanley Cup in 2022.

Even when his ice time was limited and his point totals were meager, Compher showed moments of brilliance as a puck carrier.  His dynamism with the puck on his blade could lead you to confuse him, if only momentarily, for fellow Avalanche right-shot center Nathan MacKinnon.  Of course, Compher couldn't match MacKinnon's finishing skill in the offensive zone, but his skating belongs in a similar conversation: straight-line power that doesn't sacrifice precise edgework for straight-ahead pace.

After Nazem Kadri left Colorado for Calgary via free agency last summer, there was a vacancy in the Avalanche top six.  With Kadri out the door, the number two center slot on the depth chart was unoccupied, until Compher grabbed it.  The following chart from Micah McCurdy of HockeyViz.com offers a solid picture of how it went.

By McCurdy's calculations, Compher is excellent in his own end, pretty good in the O-zone, and useful on both special teams.  He doesn't finish well, but he can set plays up, and he will neither take nor draw many penalties.

Compher's signing signals a clear organization priority: Two-way centermen.  Dylan Larkin—Yzerman's one great inheritance from the Ken Holland regime and a Michigan product himself—fits that mould.  So do Marco Kasper and Nate Danielson, first round draft picks in '22 and '23.  So does Andrew Copp, last summer's marquee free agent acquisition and Compher's teammate at Michigan.  And now, the latest is Compher.

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With him in the lineup, Copp could move to the wing (which is arguably his more natural position), or he could remain at center.  In that case, whether Compher played ahead of Copp or vice versa, Detroit would have a second-line caliber center in its third center spot.

Layering 200-foot players of this caliber on top of one another is an outstanding formula for post-season success.  It allows a team to control games and match-ups, without a sense of apprehension that your own top attackers might be exposed by defensive vulnerability.

Whether or not its enough to find a way into the 2024 postseason, Kasper and Danielson—if all goes according to plan—will be NHL players long before Compher's five-year deal expires as reinforcements.

By that time, those two young players will have to fight their way into a quality lineup.  They won't just slide straight into a blank post-rebuild wasteland the way they might have a year or two ago.

Copp could almost certainly become a full-time winger by that point, if he hasn't already, and the Red Wings have a sustainable infrastructure in place for post-season contention over the next half decade or so.

Nothing is assured.  Nothing has been accomplished yet, but, with Compher in the fold alongside Larkin and Copp and with Kasper and Danielson in the pipeline, you can start to make out the shape of the next Cup contending team in Detroit.

The Red Wings could have pursued a more prolific scorer than Compher.  Matt Duchene was bought out in Nashville and Kevin Hayes was traded for a scant return this week.  But Steve Yzerman had his eye on something different.

Yzerman didn't want flash and points; he coveted two-way control.  With Compher completing a triumvirate of 200-foot pivots, all of them once Wolverines, that's what Yzerman has.