The Sporting News’s Adam Gretz offers a mid-summer take on the “Red Wings’ ‘rebuild’“:
When we checked in with the Red Wings prior to the 2017-18 season, neither their short-term or long-term outlook seemed to be promising.
Not only was it an older roster with a lot of bad contracts, but it was an older roster with a lot of bad contacts that was coming off of a non-playoff season and looked to be in desperate need of a rebuild. With few marketable assets for trade and the lack of a young, foundational player in which to build around, it seemed like the beginning of a dismal stretch for Detroit — especially as the front office seemed to be hesitant to fully commit to an overhaul.
Now that the Red Wings missed the playoffs for a second consecutive season, the mindset seems to have changed. At least a little bit.
The rebuild is beginning and, if nothing else, it is off to an interesting start.
One thing that stands out so far is even though general manager Ken Holland has finally mentioned the word “rebuild” in association with his team, it doesn’t seem like it is going to be a total teardown to a bare bones roster. He still wants to have veteran players around and attempt to keep things at least somewhat competitive. Their offseason moves so far reflect that approach.
imo since they used the first 3 pix on forwards they should now trade roster players such as nyquist , aa , and maybe howard for dmen prospects to get dmen development underway instead of waiting to draft dmen next draft , which ide still do but ide also bring guys already drafted and thusly a few years ahead of any future draftee’s in effort to get the team contending again sooner . ide memo all gms that these 3 guys are avaliable for d prospects