The Hockey News’s Sam Stockton looks back at the Red Wings’ horrible set of back-to-back losses vs. the Ottawa Senators last February as they apply to how the Wings chose to alter their rebuild this summer:
The Red Wings’ biggest role of the unrestricted free agent dice is meant to address just that [lack of structure]. J.T. Compher—whom Detroit signed to a five-year, $25 million deal—wasn’t a splashy signing. He’s coming off the most productive season of his career, and even that amounted to just 52 points. However, Compher’s 200-foot acumen (it’s not just defense but an ability to control the entire ice surface) will help make the 2023-24 Red Wings a more stable operation than their predecessors.
Acquisitions on the back end like Jeff Petry, Shayne Gostisbehere, and Justin Holl are meant to serve a similar purpose. You can quibble with the individual contract (or in Petry’s case acquisition cost), and you might not like that it makes it harder for a player like Simon Edvinsson to break into the regular lineup. However, the vision here is to instill a baseline level of competence on defense that Detroit lacked in ’22-23, when you couldn’t in good faith say that the Wings had six NHL-caliber D at their disposal night in and night out.
Of course, the marquee acquisition of the summer, Alex DeBrincat, reflects a different story, but the fact that he comes from Ottawa cannot be ignored in this conversation.
Imposing greater structure couldn’t be the Red Wings only response to last season’s short-comings; Detroit had to bridge the gap in offensive firepower to a team like Ottawa, and it did so via a direct tact—poaching DeBrincat in exchange for Kubalik, a B-list prospect, and a pair of draft picks.
With Compher, Detroit looks to make itself a stabler team. With DeBrincat, the Wings become more explosive. They still won’t want to live in shootouts night in and night out, but they have a shiny new toy on the occasions when they do. DeBrincat represents a goal-scoring threat opponents will have to game-plan around; there hasn’t been one of those in Detroit for a while. Meanwhile, getting the ball rolling on Dylan Larkin’s wing figures to get DeBrincat rolling in a way he never hit in his lone season in Ottawa.
