This morning, the Free Press’s Helene St. James offers the following take on Detroit’s free agency outlook, and she posts a list of potential free agent fits as well:
Steve Yzerman described a list of players that would be a good fit for the Detroit Red Wings as “beautiful,” and that was before it included free agents rendered unrestricted because they did not get a qualifying offer from their prior employers.
Free agency begins Wednesday, or as some call it, “the silly season” because in the frenzy to secure a player, general managers can be a bit carefree when it comes to making offers. That’s more so a temptation of GMs in charge of contenders; for a team trying to take the next step in a rebuild, it’s an opportunity to find complementary players that can fill gaps at reasonable prices.
“We watched some of the positive impact some of our young guys had this year,” Yzerman said. “We’d like to add to that and continue to move forward. If there’s a player that can really make a significant impact, we’re not afraid to do that in free agency.
“Some of the things we weigh on is, how much does that player help us today, tomorrow and two or three years down the road, and what’s the cost of acquiring that player. Does the cost make sense for where we hope to be, or are we just spending a lot of money and not going to much different whether that player is here or helped get us there, and is there a more efficient way to get there.”
Yzerman already addressed the need for a goaltender by acquiring Ville Husso. But the Wings need scorers and defensemen, and Yzerman has roughly $30 million in salary cap space, though some of that will go toward re-signing restricted free agents Filip Zadina and Jake Walman.
