The Athletic has doled out free agency grades for every NHL team, and here’s what they have to say about the Red Wings’ moves, or the lack thereof:
The Red Wings’ free agency was perfectly average — largely geared toward replacing departing players like Shayne Gostisbehere, David Perron and Robby Fabbri, with a potential upgrade in goal in Cam Talbot. They did well to keep all of their free-agent contracts to two years or fewer, maintaining long-term flexibility, and while there’s no truly open spot in the lineup, there is at least a path to playing time for their top prospects at some point this season. The issue is they didn’t really get clearly better in any area except goaltending. Vladimir Tarasenko should be better than any one departing forward, but Detroit is losing a lot of offense up front and may score less this season. They’ll certainly hope to defend a bit better as a team, but as of now, it looks like much of that charge will fall on the shoulders of young defenseman Simon Edvinsson, who looked good at the end of last season but may still experience some ups and downs. Taken all together, Detroit looks similarly positioned to last season, with the hope that better goaltending can make up for lost scoring. — Max Bultman
Continued (paywall); meh. I respect the hell out of Max, and this upcoming season will definitely require some sort of upgrade on defense at some point…
But adding Tarasenko to the mix, Gustafsson on the back end, and, assuming he’s the starter, Talbot in goal, plus keeping Fischer and adding Motte as checking-line forwards, and, quite frankly, subtracting the penalties Perron took due to his rapidly-slowing gait and Gostisbehere’s terrifying defensive lapses = an ever-so-slightly better team, at least in my eyes.
We have yet to see whether the Red Wings make another summertime addition, but even going into camp as-is, I believe that the Wings did the best they could during a free agency period where, as Steve Yzerman said, the middle-ground free agents received remarkably high compensation and term in terms of their contracts.
Sometimes you don’t get everything you want. My hope is that, at least by next season’s trade deadline, the Wings get what they need.
