Sportsnet’s Justin Bourne posted a column in which he examines the “bottom four” teams of the Atlantic Division, discussing their respective offseason moves to close the gap between themselves and the division’s four playoff teams.
Like most folks, he’s a bit skeptical of the Wings’ moves paying off, but he’s predicting that the days of Detroit being a doormat for Boston, Florida, Tampa Bay and Toronto are over, too:
Detroit Red Wings: You only get to try to lose for so long before people say “OK enough,” and after six straight years of missing the playoffs, the Wings have finally gone in. This will be Steve Yzerman’s fourth season as GM, and he’s seen enough. Now, will they be really good? I’m doubtful. But they have plenty of good young players. Moritz Seider and Lucas Raymond got people excited last year in particular, and look who’s coming to join them:
They’ve added coach Derek Lalonde, goalie Ville Husso, defencemen Ben Chiarot, Olli Maatta and Mark Pysyk, and up front they tacked on Andrew Copp, Dominik Kubalik and David Perron. That’s seven established NHL players just plugged into the NHL lineup around their growing internal talent. The names listed there are big and competitive and capable, exactly the support you need to nurture talent at the sport’s highest level.
From Steve Yzerman: “So Chiarot’s a big body (6-foot-3, 234 pounds). Maatta’s a big body (6-foot-2, 210). Even Kubalik’s an offensive player, but he’s a big, strong guy (6-foot-2, 179). So we want to be harder to play against because we’re better defensively, we’re more competitive and even we have more depth up front that we can match up better, whether it’s strong offensive teams or strong defensive teams.”
Again, I don’t think they’re suddenly better than any team in the top-four, but I’m certain they’re going to be harder to take points off. Particularly if Husso gives them the quality goalkeeping of which he’s shown himself capable.
