For your entertainment purposes, the Red Wings are offering a signed jersey to a fan who picks Alex DeBrincat’s number:
Since The Cat isn’t Abel to wear No. 12, we’ll send a few lucky fans a signed sweater if you can guess which number he’ll be! 😺
— Detroit Red Wings (@DetroitRedWings) July 10, 2023
Ready, GO! pic.twitter.com/GRMvnjdd6I
MLive’s Ansar Khan filed an early-morning column which discusses the optimism surrounding the Red Wings’ trade for Alex DeBrincat:
For the first time since their 25-year playoff streak was snapped in 2017, the Detroit Red Wings will head into a season with legitimate aspirations of getting back to the postseason.
That wasn’t the case 10 days ago when general manager Steve Yzerman made a flurry of free-agent signings that amounted to depth moves which seemed to improve the roster marginally at best.
The outlook changed Sunday, when Yzerman acquired Alex DeBrincat, the bona fide goal-scoring threat the Red Wings so desperately needed.
On top of a team-friendly contract for a two-time 41-goal scorer (four years at an average annual value of $7.875 million), the Red Wings didn’t weaken their current roster, relinquishing what will be the lowest of their two 2024 first-round picks, expendable winger Dominik Kubalik, fringe defense prospect Donovan Sebrango and a fourth-round selection.
This was the kind of move many were waiting for Yzerman to make when he took over in 2019, the type of trade that only makes sense if a team is on the verge of competing for a playoff spot, which the rebuilding Red Wings were nowhere near during the former captain’s first four years.
The Athletic’s Ottawa Senators correspondent, Ian Mendes, passes judgment on the Alex DeBrincat trade from a Senators perspective this morning:
Not all trades are created equally, which leads us to Alex DeBrincat and his departure from the Ottawa Senators. There are rare instances in hockey where there is no “bad guy” per se in a trade. And the DeBrincat deal to Detroit might be one of those transactions.
Consider that DeBrincat never asked to be traded to Ottawa last summer. And he didn’t exactly demand a trade out of Ottawa this summer either.
And these two sentences seem to perfectly encapsulate DeBrincat’s brief stay in Ottawa. DeBrincat wasn’t an explosive and dynamic sniper in Ottawa. But he also wasn’t an abject failure either.
He scored 27 goals and 66 points, while carrying a minus-31 rating. Any positive element of his game seemed to be mitigated by a negative one. In many ways, it was a zero-sum game during his tenure in Ottawa.
And that’s how a lot of Ottawa fans might classify the return on his trade with the Red Wings. Not terrible — but certainly not great either.
Continued (paywall), and Mendes argues that the Senators will be judged on what GM Pierre Dorion does with the rest of his cap space over the balance of this summer…
Bleacher Report’s Sara Civian suggests that there were no “losers” in her analysis the Alex DeBrincat trade this morning. She gives the Red Wings a “winning” grade…
DeBrincat has two 40-goal seasons under his belt already at 25 years old and he accomplished that task on pretty weak teams — it’s not like his numbers were pumped up too hard by his teammates.
He lost a bit of his finishing touch last season, dropping from 41 goals and 78 points in 82 games with Chicago in 2021-22 to 27 goals and 66 points in 82 games with Ottawa in 2022-23. His shooting percentage dropped from 15.2 percent to 10.3 percent, so you figure there’s a good chance something as luck-based as that can come back up again, especially with the help of someone like Dylan Larkin.
When DeBrincat is on top of his game, he’s an electric, creative, offense-producing forward who will generate quality chances and finish off shots. The Red Wings need exactly that as they’ve constructed the right depth throughout the rebuild, but are lacking the clutch scoring only high-end talent can produce.
Then there’s the extension. There’s no doubt, even with DeBrincat’s down 2022-23, that he was expected to command something in the eight-by-eight range. Instead, I’d consider the four-year, $7.875 AAV contract a hometown deal, especially when you consider the cap is allegedly going to sky rocket in the next three offseasons that DeBrincat will now be locked up for on something of a bridge deal.
All of this is great news for the Red Wings. You’ve got the hometown kid looking to prove himself and taking less money to be there.
Yes, Detroit had to give up a first-rounder, a middle-six player and an enticing prospect, but it was worth it at this stage in the Yzerplan that was growing more urgent.
And Civian continues, naming the Senators a “winner” as well…
Of Twitter-related note:
Steve Yzerman got the deal done that everyone was waiting for: Alex DeBrincat is a Red Wing pic.twitter.com/d0QtgE46d3
— Jeanna Trotman (@JeannaTrotmanTV) July 10, 2023
Here’s a video of TSN’s Jay Onrait discussing the Red Wings and Ottawa Senators’ decision to trade Alex DeBrincat for Dominik Kubalik, Donovan Sebrango, a conditional first-round pick and a fourth round pick–from an Ottawa perspective:
At the 8:10 mark of the following video (which may or may not be embedded…I did my best!), the Detroit News’s John Niyo, 97.1 the Ticket’s Mike Stone and Fox 2’s Woody Woodriffe discuss the Alex DeBrincat deal:
If anything struck me about the timing of the Alex DeBrincat trade, it was simple:
We’re not working on regular time in Detroit–we’re working on Yzer-time, and that’s how this rebuild is going to continue to mature.
That’s a good thing, not a bad thing, because I fully believe that, had Steve Yzerman attempted to trade for Alex DeBrincat during the draft, or, on the first day of unrestricted free agency, the price Pierre Dorion and the Ottawa Senators were asking for would have been much higher–and the price that it would have cost to sign DeBrincat to that four-year, $31 million extension would have been higher.
Now there’s no doubt that surrendering Dominik Kubalik (an every-other-game point-scorer), Donovan Sebrango, a conditional 1st round pick and 4th round pick is not exactly fleecing Ottawa. That’s a significant price to pay for the 25-year-old DeBrincat.
But the Red Wings’ GM didn’t care for the price the Senators or DeBrincat’s agent, Jeff Jackson, were asking for the price of making a draft-day splash.
We all knew, despite the Vatican-level of security around the Red Wings’ front office, that DeBrincat wanted a Timo Meier-sized, $8.8-million, 8-year contract. And we all knew that Dylan Larkin’s $8.7 million cap hit was and is the team’s “internal salary cap.” And we knew that nobody was going to get an 8-year term if they weren’t named Moritz Seider or Lucas Raymond.
We also had some hints and inklings from various scribes that Jonatan Berggren would be among the Senators’ “asks,” and we all knew that wasn’t going to happen, either.
So what did the GM do?
Continue reading On the DeBrincat trade’s Yzer-timelineThe Athletic’s Max Bultman has weighed in regarding the Red Wings’ trade for Alex DeBrincat via an in-depth article on The Athletic:
The Red Wings finally got their man. Alex DeBrincat is coming home.
All summer, the potential match between Detroit and the dynamic-scoring DeBrincat felt close to perfect: a Farmington Hills, Michigan, native not interested in an extension in Ottawa and his hometown Red Wings in dire need of a scorer. The fit seemed so natural, even if the finer details — working out a trade with the Senators and a contract with DeBrincat — were less so. Would Detroit be willing to pony up draft capital and a big contract? Would the Senators be willing to trade the 25-year-old scorer within the Atlantic Division?
In the end, those questions were just that: details. And Sunday night, Detroit finally pulled off its signature move of the summer, acquiring DeBrincat for a conditional 2024 first-round pick, winger Dominik Kubalik, prospect Donovan Sebrango and a 2024 fourth-round pick. Immediately, the team also announced a four-year contract with DeBrincat at an average annual value of $7.875 million.
There’s plenty to unpack with the move, even as anticipated and discussed as it was over recent days and weeks. But the most important piece is that the Red Wings, at last, got the top-six scorer they so badly needed.
Continued (paywall)
Detroit Hockey Now’s Bob Duff took note of the Red Wings’ desire to address their needs for size and strength in the lineup over the course of the free agent period:
Defenseman Justin Holl is 6-foot-3 and 197 pounds. Right-winger Christian Fischer is 6-foot-2 and 212 pounds. Even right-winger Daniel Sprong, thought not known first and foremost for his physicality, is 6-foot and 202 pounds. Klim Kostin, a 6-foot-3, 215-pound center, was added from Edmonton via trade.
“They make us a bigger team,” Yzerman said. “Klim adds a bit of a dimension of not only shooting the puck in the net but hardness. Christian is a real good checker, a straight up and down right winger. He can kill penalties. I think each player has more room to grow, but they make us a little bigger for sure.”
Kostin led the Oilers with 157 hits. Fischer dished out 126 hits last season for the Arizona Coyotes. Holl was second on the Maple Leafs in both hits (151) and blocked shots (139).
“I’m a pretty big body,” Fischer said. “I like to use the word being a power forward. With that, I take a lot of pride in being a 200-foot player. It’s very cliche to say and an easy answer but I value playing the D side of the puck.
“I’d like to say I do a lot of those dirty things. They’re not goals and assists but I know the boys and the team, everyone knows that’s how you win hockey games. I would just say I’m a simple, 200-foot power forward.”
