Via Paul Kukla of Kukla’s Korner and Abel to Yzerman, The Athletic’s Eric Duhatschek answered questions from readers as part of a mailbag feature, and he shows the Red Wings no love for their offseason moves:
Who do you think did the most nothing this offseason? Lots of moves but ultimately you don’t believe it will amount to much on-ice change. — Patrick S.
It has to be Detroit. The expectation there must be that any improvement that happens next year comes from within. Vladimir Tarasenko essentially replaced David Perron on the payroll. I’d rather have Perron. Erik Gustafsson replaced Shayne Gostisbehere, I’d rather have Gostisbehere. Tyler Motte is a useful fourth liner but isn’t moving any needles. Cam Talbot and Jack Campbell, to supplement a goaltending crew that also includes Ville Husso and Alex Lyon, was a head-scratcher. It’s clear they’re buying time for Sebastian Cossa to be ready — maybe that’s when they believe they can collectively make that move up the standings. Getting Patrick Kane to re-sign on moderate terms was good business — but let’s call it a ground rule double, not a home run. But in Detroit, a lot of new faces were added and bodies shuffled, none that is likely to make a significant team-altering impact going into next year.
Continued (paywall); yes, the expectation is that improvement is going to come from within.
I believe that Tarasenko, even at 32, is an upgrade on Perron, who’s gotten painfully slow of late; Gustafsson is obviously a step back from “Ghost,” but there’s not much that the Red Wings could do about Gostisbehere’s desire to return to Carolina; Motte isn’t supposed to move any needles; and Talbot, should he continue to display the form he did for Los Angeles this past season, is an upgrade in terms of consistency over the Reimer-Husso-Lyon three-headed monster, with Campbell slated to help mentor Cossa.
And re-signing Kane was no “meh” move for a team that is still in the latter stages of what is probably a 10-to-12-year rebuild.
Plus and minus, the Red Wings added offense up front, they lost a little offense on defense, and their goaltending is marginally better and a lot deeper.
Changes still need to be made–a second-pair, shut-down defenseman is necessary, the goaltending situation needs to be hammered out, and Seider and Raymond need to be re-signed, but the Red Wings got into a situation in free agency where the “big fish” were gobbled up by Nashville, their “own fish” left for greener pastures and/or more money than the team was comfortable giving out to veteran players, and the team had to make some painful cuts (Jake Walman, for example) just to make things work with an eye toward a future where Raymond, Seider, Larkin and now Edvinsson and Johansson start to move the needle their own damn selves.
It’s a B-ish offseason grade from me. But I’m biased.
B-ish sounds realistic, and was also the consensus on the NHL twitter page.
What did they expect? Stamkos for 8×4? Trouba? Let’s ask the Rangers if they are happy!
Kane contract is very good and Tarasenko was the target for every team worried about their cap.
I’ll miss Ghost the most (ha!), but he went for more money and let’s not pretend we had a good defense last season on 5v5. Maybe we could still have Ghost (or someone of his caliber) if the Holl signing didn’t happen, but that’s on last year’s screwup list.
It’s a year to bet on the future and Seider and Raymond are priorities.
It’s a good blog you have here, man. I’m glad I found it