The Red Wings have re-signed Moritz Seider to a 7-year, $59.85 million contract this afternoon.
The Red Wings’ media corps has weighed in en masse (i.e. a very large amount all at once), so let’s examine what they have to say:
- Earlier today, the Hockey News’s Sam Stockton noted that Red Wings captain Dylan Larkin felt that it was “strange” to not have Seider in training camp:
“It is strange,” Larkin acknowledged of Seider’s absence. “That’s his situation, but I know he wants to be here. It’s between him, his agent, and Steve. The guys understand that but also we’re here to get back to work and start building towards October 10th. Obviously, he’s a huge part of our team and we need him…so it is strange not having him. We’re all hoping that it can get done pretty soon.” “I’ve talked to him,” the captain added. “Obviously, he’s one of my good, close friends, so we’ve talked.”
Coach Derek Lalonde said of the situation, “We love Mo. We’ll be ready to embrace Mo when he does arrive,” referring to Seider’s absence as “business as usual” in the context of RFA negotiations for high-end young players. Lalonde added that it was “not really a distraction” for the players who were on the ice on what he described as a successful day one, but of course, the need to even address the question suggests otherwise.
Elsewhere in his first press availability of the season, Larkin made his enthusiasm for the new year clear. “I can’t tell you how many times I’ve thought of our last home game vs. Montreal and watched the video of Lucas [Raymond] scoring,” he said, in reference to his eagerness to get back to playing in front of the Little Caesars Arena crowd. These Red Wings are excited to prove they can keep building on last year’s near miss, but it’s impossible to ignore that doing so, as Larkin said, requires Seider.
2. Then the Red Wings re-signed Seider, as the AP’s Larry Lage notes…
The Detroit Red Wings made another investment this week in a young standout, signing Moritz Seider to a seven-year contract worth nearly $60 million.
The Red Wings announced the move with the 23-year-old German defenseman on Thursday, three days after keeping 22-year-old forward Lucas Raymond with a $64.6 million, eight-year deal.
Detroit drafted Seider with the No. 6 pick overall eight years ago and he has proven to be a great pick. He has 134 career points, the most by a defenseman drafted in 2019.
He was the NHL’s only player to have at least 200 hits and block 200-plus shots last season, when he scored a career-high nine goals and had 42 points for the second straight year.
Seider won the Calder Trophy as the league’s top rookie in 2022 after he had a career-high 50 points.
Red Wings general manager Steve Yzerman is banking on Seider, whose contract will count $8.55 million annually against the cap, and Raymond to turn a rebuilding team into a winner.
3. Detroit Hockey Now’s Bob Duff spoke with Patrick Kane and Jonatan Berggren regarding the re-signing…
“Obviously great news for us,” Detroit forward Patrick Kane said. “It’s been a couple of good days for the organization.”
With captain Dylan Larkin under contract for another seven seasons at $8.75 million per year, Red Wings GM Steve Yzerman is now assured of having all the key elements of his team’s core in the fold for many years to come.
“Of course it’s fun for us and fun for him,” was the reaction of Red Wings forward Jonatan Berggren when he heard the news. “It’s well deserved and it’s a big, big piece of this organization’s future. So yeah, he’s a leader and yeah, I’m really happy for him.”
And now…
Seider has been working out in his native Germany with his old club Adler Mannheim while contract negotiations were continuing. It’s not clear how quickly he’ll be getting to Traverse City. Training camp there runs through Sunday.
4. The Hockey News’s Stockton noted the same thing…
A matter of minutes after coach Derek Lalonde said that Seider’s absence hadn’t been a distraction following the last practice on the first day of training camp, Lalonde’s words were proven true, and Seider will be signed. It remains to be seen when exactly Seider will be able to join his teammates in Traverse City.
5. The Athletic’s Max Bultman analyzed the contract’s meaning…
How this deal can deliver value for Detroit
It should age into good value organically, with a rising cap that should steadily push up the prices for big-minute defenders in the coming years. To get the most out of it, though, the Red Wings will want Seider to continue to improve upon the path he’s already on: being a two-way horse that they count on to tilt the ice in their favor.
In many ways, Detroit’s top ask of Seider will likely always be those tough matchups and shutting down top opponents. It’s a tough job, and one he’ll need to continue to master, but thriving in it is well within his capability.
When teams sign defensemen for this kind of term and money, though, they’re also hoping to get significant offense out of the deal. And while Seider’s half-point-per-game outputs the last two years are strong for his role, in a perfect world Detroit would probably like to see him get back to, or above, the 50-point output he had as a rookie over the life of this deal. More top power-play time would help that pursuit, and that’s possible this season with Gostisbehere now out of the picture.
6. 97.1 the Ticket’s Will Burchfield quoted some familiar names regarding the re-signing…
“I think he’s a tremendous young player,” Yzerman said after last season. “We haven’t been a great team in his three years here, he’s been thrown in there and he shows up every game. He battles hard, he blocks shots, he gets hit, he makes plays. We’re asking him to do a lot and he’s got the metal toughness to weather it all. To one, get out there and play, and two, to be handle the minutes against top, top players.”
The Red Wings are building a young core around 28-year-old captain Dylan Larkin, with the 23-year-old Seider and 22-year-old Raymond serving as pillars. They signed Raymond to an eight-year, $64.6 million contract earlier this week. Both were restricted free agents who entered the offseason wanting long-terms deals in Detroit. Mission accomplished.
“It’s not a big secret, I want to be a Red Wing,” Seider said after the Red Wings came within one point of their first playoff appearance in eight years last season. “I’m confident enough (to say) that I could be a good asset for this organization, and that really matters for me.”
7. As did MLive’s Ansar Khan:
Seider, following the season, described his year as “all right,” after tallying nine goals and 33 assists.
“I think there’s always more,” he said. “Other than that, I think I’m really happy, though. I think there’s a lot more to my game that’s going to be growing these next few years. Obviously just want to take another step for next season.”
In three seasons, Seider has 21 goals and 113 assists.
As for areas of improvement, he said, “I think moving the puck up ice, reading the play, don’t be too physical sometimes. Sometimes I think it’s easier to just have a good stick on someone rather than throw a hit. Those are little things that I think are easy to maneuver throughout next year.”
He will continue relishing playing against the best competition.
“It’s a cool challenge. I take a lot of pride in that,” Seider said. “Obviously, it’s hard and mistakes are going to happen. I think I’m even more ready for next year already. You just kind of create a data bank against every top line in the league. You know what their tendencies are. It’s definitely a lot of fun being out there in important situations, playing big minutes for this organization.”
8. The Detroit News’s Ted Kulfan went with “just the facts, ma’am“…
Seider, 23, is a former Calder Trophy winner (rookie of the year) who has quickly established himself as one of the NHL’s best defensemen.
Seider has yet to miss an NHL regular-season game, having played 246 consecutive games. He scored a career-high nine goals last season, with 33 assists, while playing a team-high 22 minutes, 22 seconds per game.
A key presence on both of the Wings’ special teams, Seider was the only NHL player with over 200 blocks (212; second in NHL) and hits (211; eighth).
Seider was the last unsigned Wings player, as training camp opened Thursday in Traverse City.
9. As did the Free Press’s Helene St. James:
While it took longer than anyone would have liked – training camp began with players reporting to Traverse City on Sept. 18 – to come to an agreement, the bottom line is that general manager Steve Yzerman has locked up the services of a 23-year-old Calder Trophy winner who in three years has cemented himself as a pillar of the rebuild. Seider is the team’s workhorse, playing on the top defense pairing where he is tasked with containing opposing superstars, as well as seeing time both running a power play and manning a penalty kill.
Seider was the first player drafted by Yzerman since returning to Detroit in April 2019, selected at sixth overall in 2019 on the strength of his standout performances for Adler Mannheim in his native Germany’s top hockey league.
Seider made an immediate impact on the Wings when he arrived in Detroit for the 2021-22 season, posting 50 points in 82 games and finishing by taking home top honors as the NHL’s rookie of the year. By then he already had played a season in the AHL with the Grand Rapids Griffins (2019-20). Because of the pandemic, he spent 2020-21 in the Swedish Hockey League, where he was a league and team standout with Rögle BK.
Seider posted 42 points each of the past two seasons; in each of his three seasons, he’s averaged around 23 minutes per game.
10. Finally, the Hockey News’s Jonathan Tovell talked “comparables“:
On Wednesday, TheHockeyNews.com’s Eric Cruikshank compared Seider with other younger NHL defenseman who signed long-term contracts coming off their entry-level deals.
Buffalo Sabres D-man Owen Power signed a seven-year contract extension that kicks in this season and is worth $8.35 million per year. The first-overall pick in 2021 had 35 points in 79 games in 2022-23 and 33 points in 76 games in his sophomore campaign while averaging 22:55 of ice time. Seider, a sixth-overall pick in 2019, will now carry a cap hit worth $200,000 more than Power per year.
Ottawa Senators blueliner Jake Sanderson also has a new contract extension beginning this year, although he agreed to an eight-year contract worth $8.05 million annually. After the Senators drafted Sanderson fifth overall in 2020, he had 32 points in 77 games in his rookie year and 38 points in 79 games last season.
Over in Minnesota, 22-year-old Brock Faber agreed to an eight-year contract extension that kicks in next season. Faber, a second-round pick by the Los Angeles Kings in 2020, had 39 assists and 47 points in 82 games for the Wild last season. He also averaged 24:58 of ice time, the sixth-highest average in the NHL last year, after captain Jared Spurgeon missed most of the season with hip and back injuries.
Faber’s cap hit comes closest to Seider’s at $8.5 million. But in all three cases, Seider produced more than each player in every comparable campaign. He was also the only NHL player to record at least 200 hits and 200 blocks last season.
