Daily Faceoff ranks the Red Wings’ salary cap situation as 2nd-best in the league. For now.

Daily Faceoff’s Scott Maxwell has been ranking each and every one of the NHL’s 32 teams’ respective salary cap situations over the past week, and, according to Maxwell, Steve Yzerman left the Detroit Red Wings in a pretty good place. Sort of.

2. Detroit Red Wings

Last Year: 8^th
Contract Rating: 22^nd
Contracts with No-Trade/No-Move Clauses: 11^th
Dead Cap Space: t-1^st
Quality of Contractual Core: 1^st
Cap Space to Team Quality Differential: t-10^th

Much like the Blue Jackets, a massive “what if” hangs over the Red Wings’ ranking: Simon Edvinsson. It not only creates the illusion of significantly more cap space than Detroit will have during the regular season, which impacts their cap space to team quality differential, but it also alters their contract rating and could change their first-ranked quality of core.

To be fair, Edvinsson’s addition to Detroit’s “core” wouldn’t alter their ranking, it would just change the gap they have over second place from 7.07 to 2.3. That’s a significant bright spot in their cap management, as they’re exclusive with who they give term to these days. Only Dylan Larkin, Mason Raymond and Moritz Seider belong in that club, and Larkin, the worst of the three, is likely out the door soon, and could make it even better.

But otherwise, there’s too much up in the air to fully credit Detroit as this strong of a salary-cap manager. Their contract rating is probably the best indicator of where they sit as a team, more in the middle. While they have some prospects (Emmitt Finnie, Marco Kasper) and lower-lineup players (Jacob Bryson, Wilmer Skoog) on well-valued contracts, they lose out by having far too many overpaid players (Mason Appleton, Ben Chiarot, J.T. Compher, Andrew Copp, Justin Faulk, Keegan Kolesar, Michael Rasmussen, among a few smaller ones). If not for the uncertainty of Edvinsson’s contract, no dead cap space and minimal contract clauses (although one belongs to a player using maximum control to get his desired destination), Detroit’s contract rating would weigh much larger on their cap situation and ranking. Case in point: the Ducks were in the top five before signing Cutter Gauthier. After the signing, it dropped them to 13th.

Continued; I don’t understand how re-signing Edvinsson would drop the Wings’ salary cap situation into “not-as-good” territory. That’s baffling.