Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman has posted his first 2024-2025 season version of “32 Thoughts” (as well as a podcast with Kyle Bukauskas today) sand here’s what he has to say about the Red Wings’ restricted free agents:
The Detroit Free Press reported the Red Wings want to keep Lucas Raymond and Moritz Seider below Dylan Larkin’s $8.7M. I see the rationale from their perspective: Larkin signed his contract right before becoming an unrestricted free agent, while the current duo are still restricted. I don’t believe that will be a problem in Raymond’s case, as his comparables (ranging from Seth Jarvis to Tim Stutzle) are lower than Larkin.
I had heard of some progress with Raymond, but nothing is done until it’s done. If Seider and the Wings opt for maximum term, the defender would argue to eclipse the Red Wings’ captain. Yzerman has made it clear he is not crazy about term. I don’t know how he feels about this specific case, but some teams are trying to lock up core players before the cap is expected to jump in 2026-27 — just as some agents are wary of signing long-term deals that look tiny if the anticipated rises occur.
Seider has been skating with Dallas Eakins’ Adler Mannheim club and Raymond has joined them from time to time.
Continued; Seider is from Mannheim, so he’s working with the Adler right now; as previously noted, Raymond is mostly working with his brother in Gothenburg, Sweden, as reported by GP.se’s Johan Rylander.
Both players have said that they’re not coming over to North America until their contracts are signed, which puts pressure on the Wings’ management to re-sign them by the time that the regular season arrives on Thursday, October 10th.
That’s really the cut-off date in terms of “success or failure” for the Wings’ management team–they need to incorporate Raymond and Seider back into the Wings’ machine by the start of the regular season, so I would not be surprised at all if one or both players miss training camp due to increasing pressure to cut the best deals possible by their agents.
Ultimately, Raymond’s agent, J.P. Barry, and Seider’s agent, Claude Lemieux, will work out the details with Steve Yzerman and company over the next couple of weeks.
