MLive’s Ansar Khan discusses Darren Helm’s outlook for the 2018-19 season this morning:
2018-19 outlook: In a league that has been increasingly reliant on speed, the Red Wings continue to value Helm’s skating ability, mainly for checking, but also for some offense.
They also like his versatility. He’ll start the season on wing but can move to center in case of injuries. He’ll continue to be one of their leading penalty killers and their biggest shorthanded threat. He’s not likely to see power-play time but has played the net-front role on the second unit.
Many have difficulty accepting Helm’s contract and large cap hit, but he has been an important role player for 10 years and will continue to fill that role as long as he can remain healthy.
There’s also an article from Sundsvalls Tidning this morning in which Hakan Andersson talks about Henrik Zetterberg, who he calls, “Mr. Detroit,” but the article is behind a paywall.
They’ve always way overvalued Helm. There are countless times where his speed will get him into a good position, but because he has hands of stone he’ll either lose the puck, or just plain give it back to the other team. Speed is useless if you can’t do anything with it. Sure he is useful on the penalty kill, but he is way overpaid for just that. If they really think he has so much value, he is a luxury item on this team they should trade him for picks and truly help the build for the future in my opinion.
exactly . my trade thought is to dump his cap hit plus bring in a cop to watch over the kids by trading helm to the oil for kassian . we arent winning anything anyway so a cop is way more valuable to me , and kassian on last year of contract i believe at around 2 mil .
At his age his one big asset, the speed is likely to decline anyway. They need to trade him while he has value.
a team never, ever needs to trade a player.
iff we find a team willing to offer more to the Wings than he’s worth to us, we’ll trade him (ala Tatar, Mrazek, Smith, et al).
The last place Atlantic team with the biggest cap hit. If Mr. I is ok with that then I will be..
Put a value on heart and a team 1st attitude before Mr. Zadina gets 30 goals this year and blows that plan.
these krazy kenny contracts to his country club buddies like helm end up leaving wings capped out which made them unable to give a future allstar in mantha an 8 year contract moving him towards becoming a life time wing . praying to hockey gods that hollands gone to seatle
But, Helm is the best Third Line Center in the game.