The Athletic’s Max Bultman and Corey Pronman engage in a thought experiment this morning, attempting to discern what the Detroit Red Wings’ 2025-2026 season roster might look like.
So as to not spoil the soup, here’s a chunk of the introduction to the article:
Once a year, after the draft and free agency have settled, we take a look into our crystal ball to track the progress of the Red Wings’ rebuild.
The premise is simple enough: because of the development road even top prospects must travel, it can be hard to see the future of a rebuilding team take shape when the NHL roster isn’t reflecting some of the major moves an organization is making. By looking years down the line, it’s much easier to see how all the pieces might fit together in time.
And after a draft that saw the Red Wings make two picks in the top 15 and a third in the top 40, there have been some significant potential additions to the team’s future since we last broke out the crystal ball in November.
Bultman continues at length (paywall); I’m not as enthusiastic about predicting what the Red Wings’ roster of tomorrow will look like, mostly because prospect development is such an incredibly inexact science, but this is a fun read…
Okay, a little tease:
The blue line is where the Red Wings have invested the lion’s share of their early draft capital under Yzerman, and both of these projections show the potential upside of that decision: four years from now, Detroit could plausibly have a defense corps entirely composed of early-round picks in their mid-20s.
Some veteran presence may be needed here, but Filip Hronek will be a seasoned pro by this point and Moritz Seider should have four full years of NHL experience as well. There’s a nice structure to this group, with all of these players having the potential to play on at least one special team and a few with the potential to play on both. There are limited spots on the power play, though, which could be a factor, especially down the lineup.
The main difference between my projection and Corey’s is how to slot Simon Edvinsson.
