The Free Press’s Helene St. James has authored a morning column which discusses the probability of Simon Edvinsson making the Red Wings’ 2023-2024 roster.
It’s going to be very difficult for Edvinsson to make the Wings out of training camp due to the current shape of Detroit’s blueline, but I’ve learned over my years as a Red Wings blogger to never underestimate the ability of young players to steal a job.
Anyway, here’s Ms. St. James’ wise take on Edvinsson’s situation:
The Detroit Red Wings gave Edvinsson, their top first-round pick in 2021, a nine-game audition from March 18-April 10, taking advantage of their fading playoff chances to get a look at a player who carries significant expectations for helping the rebuild. Edvinsson acquitted himself pretty well for a 20-year-old defenseman, posting two goals. But he also made some doozy mistakes, which is partly reflected in his minus-7 rating. Edvinsson, who won’t turn 21 until February, got caught playing up too high at times and was exposed to the speed of the NHL level.
It wasn’t surprising, then, that Yzerman brought in some free-agent defensemen — Shayne Gostisbehere for his power-play prowess and Justin Holl because he shoots right. Those two replace Filip Hronek, the right-shot, run-the-second-power-play defenseman who Yzerman traded to the Vancouver Canucks in March. (The return included a 2023 first-round pick that Yzerman used on right-shot defenseman Axel Sandin Pellikka, but he’s not going to be NHL-ready for a number of years.)
That swelled the defense corps to seven veterans — Moritz Seider, Ben Chiarot, Olli Määttä, Jake Walman, Gustav Lindstrom, Gostisbehere and Holl — and indicated the Wings still see Edvinsson as needing to grow his game at the AHL level.
“We have high hopes for Simon,” Yzerman said. “I’m not prepared to put him on the team in a top-six role. I don’t think it’s beyond a possibility that Simon comes in and has an outstanding training camp, an outstanding preseason, and simply forces himself into the lineup. That’s what everyone of us would love to see.
“If that happens, great. And we’ll figure it out. But at this stage to say we are going to put him in our top six, I’m not prepared to say that. It’s unfair to him and it’s not the right thing for any of our young players or the team itself.”
Continued with more from Yzerman;
As St. James notes, Jonatan Berggren is a good example of a player who didn’t make the team out of training camp last season, but still earned a spot on the Wings’ roster by the mid-point of the season.
It’s still entirely possible that Edvinsson will “steal a job” one way or another, but from what I’ve seen of him, he’s still got to work on learning how to defend. Edvinsson is one of the most talented defensemen I’ve ever seen in terms of his natural athletic abilities, but he tends to focus on making offensively adept and sometimes fancy individual plays instead of utilizing his teammates.
He also doesn’t seem to understand Henrik Zetterberg’s belief that a good shift can consist of nothing negative happening during one’s time on the ice, and that’s something you have to learn when you’re a bit of a “wild horse” of a player.
At present, the 20-year-old Edvinsson has one full season’s worth of SHL experience and one 52-game stint with the AHL’s Grand Rapids Griffins, and between his elegant skating style, his smart hands and big brain, the 6’6,” 216-pound defenseman is one of those players for whom the question isn’t whether he’s going to make the NHL, but when he’s going to stick.
