Take what you will from TSN’s Travis Yost determining that the Red Wings are in the “Fourth Tier” of teams in terms of depth at right wing:
This tier had more teams in consideration for a downgrade to tier five than an upgrade to tier one. Way too many questions across these lineups – a team like Calgary have depth but may lack the top-end talent, a team like Columbus has no less than ten (subpar) options to try and slot into a weak bottom-six, and teams like Detroit and New York are banking on some real growth from their younger weapons heading into next year.
I wanted to focus on those two, because I think they are in interesting spots. Detroit was the best tier four team and the only one I considered for tier three: Lucas Raymond looked outstanding in his rookie year (23 goals and 34 assists in his age-19 season) and is must-see television when he’s on; fellow first-round draft pick Filip Zadina also had his best season as well, but the scoring output just hasn’t been there in his first 160-games. I think Zadina deserves the benefit of the doubt considering how bad the Red Wings have been over the last few years, and he already looks a capable middle-six option, but this year will surely be about evaluating how high his ceiling may be. And David Perron is still quite the player, but as he crosses the 1,000 game mark, we can’t be certain of what his production looks like.
