The Red Wings’ media corps attended a “Street Hockey in the D” event held by the team in order to speak with coach Derek Lalonde, who addressed a number of topics, including Lucas Raymond and Moritz Seider’s contract negotiations, the roles which #23 and #53 will play this upcoming season, the team’s goals-against average and the goaltending situation.
This morning, the Free Press’s Helene St. James discusses coach Lalonde’s remarks on the Red Wings’ revised lineup, as well as his take on the Wings’ probability of starting the 2024-2025 season with a three-headed goalie monster:
“Of course I like it,” Lalonde said Wednesday. “We did a good job addressing some holes. It feels like guys may be slotted going into the year a little bit. I think we did a good job addressing some lost offense, which is very important.”
Signing forward Vladimir Tarasenko, a former 40-goal scorer, is expected to ameliorate the departures of David Perron (17 goals) and Daniel Sprong (18 goals). Signing defenseman Erik Gustafsson should lessen the blow of losing Shayne Gostisbehere (team-leading 29 power play points).
Tarasenko joins a forward corps that also features Dylan Larkin, Alex DeBrincat, J.T. Compher, Patrick Kane, Andrew Copp, Michael Rasmussen, Joe Veleno and Christian Fischer, another newcomer in Tyler Motte and, once they’re signed, Lucas Raymond and Jonatan Berggren, making for an even dozen. Prospects Carter Mazur, Marco Kasper and Nate Danielson could all push for a role, too.
On the back end, besides Gustafsson there’s Ben Chiarot, Olli Määttä, Jeff Petry, Justin Holl, and Simon Edvinsson; Seider (who also needs a new contract) and Albert Johansson, who has yet to play in the NHL but is out of waiver exemptions.
Lalonde described his possible line combinations as “fluid, especially early in camp. But it just feels like guys are slotted a bit more proper, and it will make more of an ideal top-six, bottom-six situation. But that will be fluid as the season starts.”
Coach Lalonde told St. James that the Red Wings simply need to advance this upcoming season:
“It’s just exciting,” Lalonde said. “All I’ve known here since I’ve come here is some progression. We’ve moved in the right direction from Year 1 to Year 2. And now we need to keep building. Expectations will change, which is all good. This is all part of the process. We just want a little bit more [from] everybody.”
Continued (paywall); the Red Wings did lose a ton of offense in Perron, Sprong and Gostisbehere, but Tarasenko and Gustafsson should at least dig into that lost offense, and yes, coach Lalonde is correct–the team’s got more of a real “top six” and “bottom six” up front, as well as a little more balance to its three defensive pairs.
It would be nice if the team could acquire a second-pair, shut-down defenseman by the time the season starts, but that’s more likely to happen toward the trade deadline…
And the goaltending situation isn’t going to sort itself out until it sorts itself out, whether that’s over the course of training camp and the exhibition season, or whether it takes until sometime during the regular season.
