The Athletic’s Max Bultman wrote a mailbag feature this morning. Among the questions asked was an interesting query: of the Wings’ possible 2020 first round draft picks, which player is the “closest” to providing an immediate impact:
I think Marco Rossi is the first guy in that group to the NHL, partly because he’s one of the oldest players in the class, partly because he already ran up the score on the OHL last year, and partly because he’s already signaled he wants to be in the NHL right away. Scott Wheeler reported in August that Rossi opted against signing in Europe this fall to instead focus on training, with the intent of being in the NHL when it starts back up.
Among the others: Lucas Raymond and Alexander Holtz start their seasons in Sweden this weekend. Jake Sanderson is on the young side of the draft class as a July birthday, and is bound for college. Jamie Drysdale will take time to fill out and keep developing. And Cole Perfetti still likely needs to improve on his strength and skating before he’s ready, although he could torch the OHL this year, to the point he may need to be in the NHL in 2021.
Which one is an impact player first might be a different question, but the Red Wings shouldn’t worry about who becomes a difference-maker first so much as who can make the biggest difference overall.
Continued (paywall); I swear to you that I was going to ask for mailbag questions today, but Bultman beat me to it.
Still, if you have Red Wings-related questions, send them my way via the comments section, Twitter or email at rtxg@yahoo.com. It’s just time to start answering some hockey questions on a regular basis.
