The Hockey News’s Adam Proteau posted an article discussing the Red Wings’ outlook as free agency approaches, and while Proteau doesn’t believe that the Red Wings are a playoff team yet, he sees reasons for hope in Detroit:
What Detroit Has: A well-respected GM in Steve Yzerman, and a new head coach in Derek Lalonde; the reigning rookie-of-the-year in blueliner Moritz Seider; highly-skilled young forwards in captain Dylan Larkin, Lucas Raymond, Robby Fabri, Tyler Bertuzzi and Pius Suter; a new starting goalie in Ville Husso
What Detroit Needs: A vastly-improved defensive attack; depth and NHL experience all-around, but particularly, on the back end; a bounce-back year from (now) No. 2 netminder Alex Nedeljkovic; a breakout season from D-man Olli Juolevi; good health for winger Jakub Vrana
What’s Realistic For Detroit Next Season: The Red Wings were an unspeakably awful defensive team this past season, as evidenced by the 312 goals-against they allowed in 82 games; only the abysmal Arizona Coyotes (313) and Montreal Canadiens (319) surrendered more. And that was with Calder Trophy-winner Moritz Seider playing more than 23 minutes a night.
Certainly, GM Steve Yzerman saw his netminding duo of Thomas Greiss and Alex Nedeljkovic as part of the reason for that problem. He’s allowed Greiss to move on via unrestricted free agency, and, at the NHL draft this past week, he went out and acquired former Blues No. 2 Ville Husso and immediately signed him to a three-year, $14.25-million contract extension. The 27-year-old Husso has only 57 regular-season NHL games-played under his belt, but he showed enough promise – and the goalie market was weak enough – to position himself in a good money-making position.
Meanwhile, Yzerman dipped into the talent pool of his previous employer, the Tampa Bay Lightning, to replace dismissed head coach Jeff Blashill with Bolts assistant coach Derek Lalonde. He has no experience running an NHL team, but Lalonde has proven himself capable of turning a program around at the minor league level, and he’ll be immediately challenged to reverse Detroit’s competitive trajectory in an improved Atlantic Division.
That’s the big stumbling block for the Wings in 2022-23: which Atlantic teams are they going to leap over to earn a playoff spot for the first time since 2015-16? The Lightning, Florida Panthers, and Toronto Maple Leafs are post-season locks. The Boston Bruins are still aiming to be at least as good as they were last season. The Ottawa Senators just stole high-scoring winger Alex DeBrincat from Chicago, and almost assuredly will be better. The Buffalo Sabres were a better team in the second half of last season, and should be better this coming year. And let’s not forget, Detroit finished 33 points out of a playoff berth in 2021-22. The hill they have to push the stone up is steep indeed, and though the Wings likely won’t be as bad as they were, it’s tough to imagine them making that big of a jump this year.
Continued; my assessment of Yzerman and Lalonde’s comments thus far is that the Wings want to be “in the playoff conversation” more than anything, and that it’s important for the team to shore up its defense and find some sort of consistency.
That’s not necessarily a playoff-worthy level of expectations, but it’s inching closer.
One point of contention as well: I’m not sure that the Wings are even going to give a qualifying offer to defenseman Olli Juolevi. He may or may not be in the Wings’ plans for next season.
The Wings look like the ‘harder to play against’ mantra is for real. Boughner coaching the D is not a small thing. He’s a hard nosed coach and the defense will likely take on his personality. The picks of Kasper, James and Buchelnikov are a clear indication they want guys that drive to the net and want goals. Its also a possible sign that guys like Veleno and Zadina are all but gone. They are perimeter players. I expect Yzerman will look at trading for players or RFA’s that fit the new mold. One guy I keep thinking of is Nicolas Roy in Vegas. Big and physical, I could see Yzerman picking up Pacioretty’s cap hit for one year if Vegas gave them Roy. Vegas needs low cost guys in their bottom 6 and third D pair. We got lots of those. No clue if this is possible, but I think GMSY is going to weed out softness from his bottom 6. VGK’s LD Nic Hague is also a very enticing target for the Wings
I’m not sure whether Yzerman is going to be that aggressive this summer, but we know that he’s going to explore his UFA options and trades to improve the team…
And I completely agree about Boughner providing the hard-nosed, hard-assed part of the equation for Lalonde. The “Players’ Coach” got his yeller.