We Red Wings partisans have had a mixed relationship with free agency. Under GM Steve Yzerman’s tenure, Detroit’s hockey franchise has either done too much (Andrew Copp, Ben Chiarot, J.T. Compher, etc. etc.) to try to push the Wings over the top, or it’s done too little.
There doesn’t seem to be a happy medium for Yzerman, the Wings’ pro scouts, and the rest of the management team. It’s either so much action that the roster’s too packed for younger players to earn spots, or the team does what we feel is nothing at all.
Before free agency, I was blunt: I felt that the team would, due to the mediocre nature of the free agent marketplace, and Detroit’s lack of status as a “destination,” do simpler things:
I expected the Wings to address their bottom-six depth and toughness, to add some depth on defense, and to determine whether Michal Postava should back up John Gibson.
I was not expecting a quick solution to the Dylan Larkin situation (and I’m not expecting a tearful reunion), either, so I’m willing to hold vigil on “X”/Twitter as necessary for the Wings to hold out for a real trade return.
Today, the Red Wings re-signed Carter Mazur; they added depth for Grand Rapids in Cameron Butler, Jacob Bryson and Wilmer Skoog; the team chose to bring in big goaltender Daniil Tarasov as Gibson’s back-up; they made a trade to snag the hard-hitting Keegan Kolesar (a favorite of mine), and, as a bonus (or at least insurance, should Patrick Kane leave the fold), Detroit signed 25-goal-scorer Viktor Arvidsson.
While Sergei Bobrovsky went to Toronto, the San Jose Sharks absorbed the salaries of Darnell Nurse and Jacob Trouba, and two-way center Vincent Trocheck cost the Utah Mammoth a pretty penny, the Wings did what they could–they took care of their depth, they added some scoring insurance and goaltending insurance, and they brought in a legitimate tough guy.
There are still some big (or at least consequential) names out there, too, as noted in a Tweet retweeted by The Athletic’s Max Bultman…
Interesting UFAs still available:
— NHL Rosters (@NHL_Rosters) July 1, 2026
Anthony Mantha
John Carlson
Patrick Kane
Claude Giroux
Vladimir Tarasenko
Eeli Tolvanen
Logan Stanley
Frederik Andersen
Mario Ferraro
Andrew Peeke
David Perron
John Klingberg
Michael Bunting
Evander Kane
James van Riemsdyk
Adam Henrique
Daily Faceoff’s Matt Larkin (someone whose writing I appreciate) issued a list of “winners” and “losers” of free agency some 8 hours into the unrestricted free agent period, however, and he believes that the Red Wings have failed, and how:
Detroit Red Wings
Viktor Arvidsson is a good signing in a vacuum coming off a resurgent season. But zoom out and we have a team riding 10 consecutive playoff misses, sitting on captain Dylan Larkin’s trade request waiting on the right deal. Do additions like Arvidsson and grinder Keegan Kolesar mean anything in the context of a team whose direction is unknown? If Steve Yzerman was not Steve Yzerman, he’d have been fired from the Red Wings GM chair twice by now. What a disaster his tenure has been.
Now I root for the Red Wings when they win, and I wince when they lose.
I’ve drank from the Stanley Cup at Cheli’s Chili way back in 2008, and it irritates me to no end that the young folk of today have no memory of the heydays of 4 Stanley Cups and 6 Stanley Cup Final appearances in 11 years.
I’m not thrilled with the hiccups and mistakes made by Steve Yzerman and the Wings’ pro and amateur scouts, either. They sting, and, for a team that’s raised ticket prices on its long-suffering fans on a repeated basis, their performances aren’t good enough, frankly.
But Steve Yzerman serves at the pleasure of Marian and Christopher Ilitch. He’s going to be the GM of the team until such a time as the Ilitches grow tired of him, and they don’t seem to believe that he’s run out of leash yet.
So I accept that he’s going to be a conservative, prudent and sometimes prudish, over-cautious GM, and I hope for the best in terms of the prospects and picks Detroit’s amateur scouts make meshing with the team’s middling veteran core to build a playoff-caliber team, if not this upcoming season, then soon, because it’s been way too long since we’ve witnessed playoff hockey.
Why? The Habs, for example, had their roster holes as well as a talented young core, proved that you can get pretty far if you just “get in” this past spring. Once you “get in,” funny things can happen, even to flawed teams.
So I still believe–and I’m also resigned to the fact that Steve Yzerman is going nowhere.
I believe that he’s going to try to make the best decisions for the team going forward, mistakes in the past included. I believe that the Wings finally have the right coach in Todd McLellan, have a good core in Moritz Seider, Lucas Raymond and Simon Edvinsson, that the vets they’ve added will help the John Gibsons and Andrew Copps of the world play more consistently, and with more “heart”…
And I hope that the Dylan Larkin situation rectifies itself with a meaningful trade by training camp–or that Larkin stays home if he’s still a Red Wing come September.
We are where we are at, and the only way out of the hole that the Red Wings have dug for themselves is to start digging themselves out, one shovelful and one shift at a time.
This is a thoroughly mediocre team, and it’s been thoroughly mediocre for too long, in no small part due to middling drafting, middling prospect development, middling coaching and middling performances by star players.
But it’s been on an upward trend, albeit far slower in pace than any of us would want, and I believe that the Wings will continue a slow ascent.
Maybe Patrick Kane will come back and continue to mentor the Wings’ youngsters. Maybe he won’t.
Maybe the Dylan Larkin trade will spark the organization, and maybe it will consist of “futures” that have to be traded to a 3rd team for a semblance of immediate help.
I do know that the Wings won’t be quite as good without Dylan Larkin, but they’ll give their damnedest in September, and, if they learn to stop falling on their faces with inconsistent play and Spring collapses, maybe they’ll have a chance to push a playoff team out of a playoff spot, even if they have to scratch and claw for a Wild Card spot in the Division of Death that is the Atlantic.
Hell, maybe the team will make a trade over the course of the regular season or at the trade deadline to meaningfully address their weakness “up the middle,” and maybe someone like Elias Pettersson will be available to help shore up the center ice position.
Even if that doesn’t happen, this is Todd McLellan’s team, and if he can teach them how to work harder, smarter, and more consistently, I believe that this team can compete. And competing for a playoff spot, even if they don’t earn one, is all I can hope for right now.
Yzerman is not the greatest GM right now, or thus far. The Red Wings are not the NHL’s greatest team right now, or thus far.
But this isn’t the suckiest suck that ever sucked, especially all of 8 hours into free agency on July 1st of an offseason that won’t end until training camps begin in early September.
To some extent, despite the fact that so much of us can’t bear to sit still any more, we’ve got to sit, wait to see how the Larkin and Kane situations rectify themselves, and then we’ve got to hope that this team prepares as best it can, both physically, mentally, emotionally and even spiritually, to play the best and most consistent hockey it can this upcoming season, on both collective and individual bases.
It’s still July, and I’ve still got hope for the 2026-2027 season, and no amount of trash-talking will extinguish my hopeful flame.
Not yet, anyway.
