As we hit August 1st, the Hockey News’s Adam Proteau wrote an article about the free agents who remain “on the market” as players who can change the course of a franchise–in the form of the NHL’s restricted free agent players who have yet to re-sign with their rights-holding teams.
Proteau has this to say about the Red Wings’ need to re-sign Moritz Seider, who’s represented by 4Sports’ Claude Lemieux (really!)…
Moritz Seider, D, Detroit Red Wings: The Red Wings currently have more than $17.6 million in cap space, but GM Steve Yzerman has two prominent RFAs in 23-year-old Seider and 22-year-old Lucas Raymond.
Seider can point to contracts, such as Sabres youngster Owen Power’s $8.35 million per season contract and Minnesota’s Brock Faber’s $8.5-million-per-season deal as a comparable for him, and the Wings would still be getting a relative bargain for what Seider brings to the table.
Risk and reward: A Calder Trophy, followed by back-to-back seasons of more than 40 points, is quite promising for the Red Wings. Seider is their current No. 1 defenseman and should be for a long time, so having a lengthy deal is a big reward in itself. It’s probably not worth it for Detroit to overthink, although having a career-high 50 points in his rookie season and not beating it yet may have them trying to figure out if they’ve seen enough for the big money that comes with a long term.
As far as not replicating his 50-point season, and posting 40+ over the last two years, I think that the Red Wings are a little more concerned about Seider’s overall play than hitting a particular output number…
Anyway, the “comparables” are spot-on from Proteau in Seider’s case, and he offers a similar take on Lucas Raymond’s bargaining situation (and Raymond is represented by CAA’s J.P. Barry):
Lucas Raymond, RW, Detroit Red Wings: With 31 goals and 72 points last season, Raymond led Detroit in scoring, and it’s time for him to cash in on his talents.
Raymond is just scratching the surface of what he’s capable of, but if Yzerman acts quickly and gives him a payday of at least $7 million or $8 million, the team and the player will be pleased.
A long-term contract could be a massive bump in the short term but look excellent as the cap ceiling rises in the next few years. Either way, Raymond is a core component for Detroit, which will be reflected in his new deal.
Risk and reward: Raymond tried his mightiest to keep the Red Wings going when Dylan Larkin was out with injury, which shows a lot about his ability to drive play and be a needle-mover for Detroit down the line. His slight step back in his sophomore season from his rookie year before the breakout 72-point campaign in his third year could make his production a little tougher to extrapolate, but he should continue to improve even more.
Again, I’m not worried about the output numbers here, and whether Raymond is a point-per-game player or a 65-70 point player. One way or another, as Proteau suggests, he drives play and makes things happen on the ice on his own, and the Red Wings need as many of those players as possible.
Raymond has turned out to be everything that the Red Wings expected and more in terms of his surprisingly sandpapery edge and ability to serve as a forechecking forward, so there’s no reason to be concerned about his impact.
The only thing that worries me about both players is that you can look toward contracts in the $8, $9 and $10 million range that are being handed out to both similar players and similarly-heralded players with resumes that aren’t quite as sterling as Seider or Raymond.
Shit happens in that regard, but I would estimate that the biggest reason things have taken all summer to be resolved is simple–Yzerman isn’t going to hand out an $11 million Rasmus Dahlin contract to Seider, and I’d gather that Travis Konecny’s $8.75 million-cap-hit extension with Philadelphia is just out of the range of Raymond’s earning power.
The Red Wings’ GM and management team are meticulous, practical and patient–but also thorough in terms of ensuring that the team’s $17.65 million in PuckPedia-estimated salary cap space also covers Jonatan Berggren’s salary–so I’m not expecting the contract-negotiating process to reach their respective conclusions until a bit closer to training camp.
Seider and Raymond are probably going to have to sign $8 million-range contracts if they wish to make training camp, and not much more than that, because the team doesn’t want to end up having to trade more players away (see: Robby Fabbri and Jake Walman) in order to fit Seider, Raymond and Berggren under the cap.
This is going to be a methodical negotiation–the Red Wings’ GM is nothing if not methodical–and we’ll end up waiting until the numbers are “just right” before all of the Red Wings’ restricted free agents re-sign on the dotted line.
