Author: George Malik

The Athletic’s Mark Lazerus posted an article this morning which discusses Patrick Kane’s 1-year, $6.5 million contract with the Red Wings in terms of its fit and finish:

Kane gets to continue playing on a power-play unit (and often a line) with Alex DeBrincat, one of his favorite linemates, on a team with legitimate playoff aspirations. And he gets to do it close to his native Buffalo, which always has been important to Kane, whose father, Pat Sr., still attends most of his games and even many of his practices. And Kane gets the no-movement clause that ensures he has control of his future at the trade deadline if things go awry in Detroit.

I really like that he gets the NMC.

The Red Wings, meanwhile, get to keep one of their top play drivers with very little risk. The crafty structuring of the contract gives Detroit some cap flexibility, as the base salary is only $4 million, with $2.5 million in performance bonuses. Per Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman, Kane gets $1.5 million just for appearing in 10 games, $250,000 for 60 games, $500,000 if the Wings make the playoff and $250,000 for posting 60 points and making the playoffs. If the Wings are a cap team this season, the bonuses wouldn’t count against them until the 2025-26 season, when the cap is expected to take another big jump. So Detroit can essentially have Kane for just $4 million this season, well below market value for the future Hall of Famer.

Is there some risk in signing a 35-year-old with a surgically repaired hip? Sure. But the contract itself is low risk, and Kane — whose game was never predicated on speed to begin with — showed he had plenty of life left in his legs and his game last season.

Contract grade: A
Fit grade: A-

Continued (paywall)

The Athletic’s Shayna Goldman posted a list of 10 “overpriced contracts” which she believes should be moved by NHL teams, and she included Red Wings goaltender Ville Husso on her list, which was published prior to the Linus Ullmark trade to Ottawa:

Ville Husso, Detroit Red Wings

Ville Husso’s future hinges on whether the Red Wings — who were partially sunk by bad goaltending this past season — can land an upgrade in net. The 29-year-old was streaky during his first season in Detroit, rocking an .896 save percentage in 56 games. He was limited to just 19 games because of injuries this year.

GM Steve Yzerman said he “will look at the goalie market,” and the Red Wings are reportedly interested in Linus Ullmark. If Detroit lands a starter, you can bet that the final year of Husso’s contract at $4.75 million will immediately be on the trade block, especially because the club has a quality backup in Alex Lyon who only costs $800,000.

Husso would be an intriguing albeit expensive roll of the dice. A team short on goaltending could talk itself into believing Husso’s numbers faded in the second half of 2023-24 because he was overused and that he might bounce back with better health next season.

All that said, there’s also a decent chance that Yzerman simply signs a veteran No. 3 goalie instead of a big-name starter. In that case, Husso’s highly unlikely to get traded.

Continued; it’s going to be hard to move Husso.

DetroitRedWings.com’s Jonathan Mills posted an article discussing Micahel Brandsegg-Nygard’s 2024 draft experiences:

After being selected No. 15 overall by the Red Wings in the 2024 NHL Entry Draft, Brandsegg-Nygard first posed for pictures on stage with members of the Detroit’s front office and NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman in front of a sellout crowd of 14,220.

“I got an energy rush in my whole body when I heard my name,” Brandsegg-Nygard said on Friday. “It was pretty cool to experience.”

Proudly wearing a Red Wings jersey, Brandsegg-Nygard then walked off stage a photo shoot, rejoined and embraced his family, visited Detroit’s suite and spoke with the media.

“(Sphere is) such a unique arena,” Brandsegg-Nygard said on Friday. “This is my second time in the U.S., and Vegas is a pretty cool city to be in. It’s a cool experience to just be here.”

A native of Oslo, Norway, Brandsegg-Nygard became the first Norwegian-born player selected in the first round of an NHL Entry Draft. The 18-year-old said being drafted by an NHL club was something he always dreamed about.

“I’m from Norway, so it felt so far away,” Brandsegg-Nygard said about being drafted. “But after the first season in Sweden, it felt closer and I felt like it was possible to get drafted in the first round. That was just a big motivation.”

Continued

From Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman’s “free agency thoughts“:

As I left the draft, Nashville was No. 1 on my Steven Stamkos list, but [Jonathan] Marchessault’s departure [from Vegas] vexes me. I am totally vexed, as Commodus said in Gladiator. Vegas would not risk Marchessault walking without backup. Guentzel is signed. Reinhart is signed. Barring a trade I haven’t sniffed out, Stamkos is the true big-fish replacement. It is the Golden Knights’ modus operandi to chase this. But I still believe the Predators want him and the Red Wings will be given the opportunity to pitch if they so desire. Stamkos’s pedigree is such that there will be surprise suitors, and if I had to pick a wild option, it would be Carolina. The Hurricanes always have a plan, but they really hoped to keep Guentzel. Beware the jilted lover on the rebound.

Continued (very good stuff, Elliotte!)

Per the Detroit Red Wings:

RED WINGS RELEASE 2024 DEVELOPMENT CAMP ROSTER 

  … Thirty Recent Draft Picks on Roster, Including Eight from 2024 Draft …

DETROIT – The Detroit Red Wings today announced the roster for their 2024 Development Camp, which will be held at the BELFOR Training Center inside Little Caesars Arena starting today, Monday, July 1 to Friday, July 5. The camp roster currently consists of 29 forwards, 14 defensemen and seven goaltenders.

All eight players the Red Wings selected at the 2024 NHL Entry Draft on June 28-29 at Sphere in Las Vegas will be in attendance for Development Camp: forwards Austin Baker, Ondřej Becher, Michael Brandsegg-Nygård, Charlie Forslund and Max Plante, defensemen Fisher Scott and John Whipple, and goaltender Landon Miller. Ten of the team’s selections from the 2023 NHL Entry Draft are slated to attend, along with five players from the 2022 Draft and three from 2021.

TSN’s Jay Onrait spoke with ESPN’s Pierre LeBrun regarding Sunday’s free agent signings, including Sam Reinhart, Jake Guentzel, and a certain Red Wings forward Patrick Kane (skip ahead to the 7:50 mark for actual Kane talk):

ESPN’s Greg Wyshynski posted an ESPN-insider-only article which discusses no less than SIXTEEN “fits” for one Steven Stamkos in free agency, and Wyshynski begins his list of “fits” with the team in red and white:

Detroit Red Wings: The connections here are obvious: No general manager spent as many years generally managing Steven Stamkos as Steve Yzerman, the current head of hockey operations for the Red Wings. Derek Lalonde, the team’s head coach, was Jon Cooper’s right-hand man in Tampa Bay during their two Stanley Cup championships with Stamkos.

The fit here is obvious: The Red Wings desperately need more offensive pop beyond their top line and have a glaring hole at center behind Dylan Larkin.

The Red Wings have a significant amount of salary cap space — $32.77 million, before bringing back Patrick Kane — and have cleared additional roster space with a (rather unpopular) trade that sent defenseman Jake Walman to San Jose. “We needed to move at least one contract to do some of the things we got to do,” Yzerman said.

Continued (paywall) with more talk of the Red Wings as a “fit” and much, much more…

The Detroit Red Wings have re-signed Patrick Kane to a cap-friendly 1-year deal, we know that GM Steve Yzerman is interested in re-signing Shayne Gostisbehere and forward David Perron, and with about $27 million in cap space and 7 forwards, 5 defensemen and 2 goalies signed at the NHL level (per PuckPedia, with Jonatan Berggren, Lucas Raymond, Moritz Seider and Joe Veleno left to re-sign as restricted free agents)…

The Red Wings are going to need a couple more forwards to round out the third and fourth lines, the bottom of the defensive corps, and in goal, where Sebastian Cossa and Carter Gylander will at least need a mentor who’s willing to shuffle between Grand Rapids and Detroit as the Wings’ third goalie.

The Wings will have to be aggressive to find their next Christian Fischer or Daniel Sprong, especially as both players are likely to “walk” as unrestricted free agents-to-be who can earn more elsewhere.

As The Athletic’s Max Bultman put it earlier this evening…

The New York Post’s Larry Brooks posted an article which discusses the New York Rangers’ free agency options, but at the end of his article, he addresses Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman’s assertion that potential trade target Jacob Trouba is unhappy with New York Rangers GM Chris Drury and the organization for asking the Rangers’ captain to accept a trade to the Red Wings:

Monday is the day that Jacob Trouba’s no-move clause transforms to a 15-team no-trade list. There are apparently hurt feelings on the part of the captain, maybe even deservedly so over the way the club’s intentions were splashed all over the papers and the internet last week.

But it would be counterproductive for Trouba to put on a pout and attempt to make it as difficult as possible for the Rangers to trade him. Trouba has always played hardball in contract negotiations. He had leverage with then-GM Jeff Gorton after the Blueshirts obtained the defenseman from Winnipeg in 2019 with one year left on his deal ahead of potential free agency that he used to get his current seven-year, $56M contract that has two years remaining.

Now the Rangers have leverage via the limited no-trade clause and have decided they can’t afford an $8M cap hit for a defenseman who is projected to be on the third pair. It doesn’t matter whether he was Captain Courageous playing on a broken ankle in the playoffs or not.

If Trouba does not approve a trade to Detroit that is believed in place, he will ultimately be sent somewhere else, perhaps by waivers. The decision has been made.

Continued; Brooks’ Rangers intel is almost always spot-on, and if he was playing with a broken ankle during the playoffs, that might explain some of the Wings fan base’s concerns with the 30-year-old defenseman’s mobility (or the lack thereof).

I’m not the world’s biggest Jacob Trouba fan, but a right-shot defenseman who can hit like a freight train could indeed become an asset if utilized effectively (read: not expected to be a #1 defenseman).

The Rangers’ captain is a big man at 6’3″ and 209 pounds, he averaged 21 minutes per night last season, and he’s good for maybe 20 points and around 70-80 penalty minutes.

If the Rangers are willing to take a chunk of his $8 million salary, the Pontiac, MI-born Trouba could be a solid fit on the second pair.

Okay, plain truth here: it is a simple fact, since the Marian Hossa signing in 2008, that the Red Wings make news when George is “out of the office” in some way, shape, or form.

The Red Wings re-signed Patrick Kane while I was upstairs and away from the computer, making dinner (Swedish meatballs, toast and peaches) for Aunt Annie and putting out her medications.

Pumped to be back for another one! Big year ahead! #LGRW pic.twitter.com/rPVVgJUi1e

— Patrick Kane (@88PKane) July 1, 2024

Earlier today, they issued their qualifying offers while I was taking a needed afternoon siesta after two days’ worth of draft coverage.

There’s good news here, of the nonsensical kind, at least! Tomorrow at 12:30 PM EDT, half-an-hour into free agency, Aunt Annie’s visiting nurse, Gloria, is coming for a one-hour appointment.

Gloria usually needs me to take part in the first half of the appointment, so if the Red Wings do something big–let’s say signing another top-six forward, making a move on defense, or re-signing some of their own restricted and unrestricted free agents–it will probably happen in that hour.

Here’s hoping, anyway!