Daily Faceoff’s Scott Maxwell is ranking the NHL’s 32 teams by their salary cap management.
You will be shocked to find that the rebuilding Red Wings do not rank highly due to over-paying free agents and so forth, but Maxwell makes some cogent points here, too:
28. Detroit Red Wings (2023: 30th)
Good Contract Percentage: t-30th (2023: 24th)
Quality Cheap Deals: t-24th (2023: 9th)
Contracts with No-Trade/No-Move Clauses: t-24th (2023: 28th)
Dead Cap Space: 14th (2023: 24th)
Quality of Core: t-26th (2023: 20th)
Cap Space to Skill Differential: 12th (2023: 21st)The Detroit Red Wings are a team whose ranking should be taken with a massive grain of salt. The fact they have yet to sign two of their biggest young stars in Lucas Raymond and Moritz Seider means that they could very well not finish in this spot by the time we publish the full list. Whether that will see them improve or get worse remains to be seen, but for now, let’s look at what they do have.
The biggest issue with the Red Wings is their continued desire to block their young talent by signing veterans to fill up their cap space. Admittedly, all three of their big veteran adds in Vladimir Tarasenko, Erik Gustafsson and Cam Talbot all grade out as good deals, but the pre-existing deals like Andrew Copp, J.T. Compher, Ben Chiarot and Justin Holl meant they already had no room to add more without getting in the way of their talent. The team has certainly improved, but they have a salary cap picture that looks daunting to navigate going forward, which is almost impressive considering how well Steve Yzerman did cleaning up the previous mess left by Ken Holland.
Continued; I’m not going to disagree, honestly. I understand that the Red Wings are going to be judged heavily as to how the management group manages (no pun intended) to work Raymond and Seider’s deals in under the cap (and Jonatan Berggren’s, for that matter)…
And the one thing that really pisses me off about Steve Yzerman’s management is that the team does over-veteran-ize the team. I’m comfortable with some of the free agent signings, and at least at peace with the Copps and Holls of the world as “things that cannot be undone,” but you guys know me by now…
I’m somebody who wants to see what the young kids can do 80% of the time. I understand that when you build a team, you do not build a convertible–you build a big, honkin’ SUV with snow tires and tow hooks–but there has to be some available space left for promoting from within, and that space has been taken up by veteran players for the past couple of seasons.
Has it been necessary due to the lack of depth left over by the crater that Ken Holland left for Yzerman? Sure, but Steve has not been perfect in his cap management or 50-man-roster management, and there are times that you can put up roadblocks for your younger players, and fans want to see the Edvinssons and Johanssons and Mazurs and Kaspers and Danielsons for more than one or two games per season.
Now some of that falls upon coaching decisions, but between Yzerman’s over-pollenating of the roster with veterans and Lalonde’s seeming unwillingness to trust anyone not named Zach Aston-Reese with a call-up, I think that there has been some stunted development over the past couple of seasons, and that has to be rectified.
That does apply to cap and roster management, too, so it’s relevant here. And now that the Red Wings have a prospect pool, it’s time to include some wiggle room in terms of call-ups and promotions to afford the young kids time to impress and improve before their waiver-exempt statuses expire.
Ultimately, the NHL is not a developmental league, the coaches and GM’s tell us, but without affording top prospects some ability to acclimate themselves to NHL action, your team begins to stagnate, and the Wings have been really stagnant at times over the past couple of seasons.
It’s time to see that slowly change.
