Dobber Hockey’s Shane Malloy discusses four free agent forwards who signed with new teams over the course of the past week, and he endorses the Red Wings’ decision to sign 28-year-old center Andrew Copp to a 5-year contract:
#4) Andrew Copp – C – Detroit Red Wings
Contract: $5.625M – 5 Years remaining
Personally, this may be one of the best signings in free agency so fa. He has term on his contract, a controllable cap hit (currently), while he has a modified no trade clause (M-NTC, meaning he submits a 10-team no-trade list), he is going to be 33 years old when the contract expires. Some people have said the amount is a little too high, if anything I think it is around fair value in today’s market. He plays the middle of the ice well, above average in the faceoff dot, in the last couple of seasons he has played with some talented players in Winnipeg and while a member of the Rangers as well. His point production has seen improvements spanning from the 2020-2021 season, and with this seasoning in Detroit it seems he should be the second line center behind Larkin for the next little while. This signing gives recently drafted, Marco Kasper time to develop, along with a player that most people forget about, Joe Veleno. Detroit has a solid cast of players to play alongside of Copp in the meantime, and overall, his value shouldn’t be seen in a negative light when it comes to him as a real-life NHL asset. In the fantasy realm though, I’m not sure if I like the cap-hit versus the little amount of time he has shown an offensive flair. But it’s one that I believe can age well given the upcoming cast that Detroit has in the pipeline, along with their young roster players, and the other players that Yzerman brought in.
Continued; Copp has definitely been a late-bloomer offensively, but as a stalwart two-way center slated to play on the Red Wings’ second line, I don’t believe that the Red Wings overpaid too badly for his services.
I think that Malloy is right that the fact that Copp buys Kasper and Veleno a couple of years to really find their form is part of the reason why Yzerman signed him.
As for his offensive game, he blossomed with Artemi Panerin on his wing in New York, but his body of work with the Winnipeg Jets was very strong, too.
