Author: George Malik

Red Wings defenseman Moritz Seider spoke with the Hockey News from the NHL/NHLPA European Media Tour on Friday, and he also spoke with NHL.com’s Shawn P. Roarke regarding the uncertainty surrounding Detroit at present:

Seider says he is ready to take another step in his on-ice progression toward being among the game’s best defensemen. To him, that is the best way to help.

“I mean, you should always treat it like the sky is the limit; if you don’t aim for the stars, it’s tough to reach them,” he said. “If you don’t want to compare yourself to the best, you’re probably never going to be in a conversation with them.  It’s been really good what I achieved so far, but there’s plenty of room to work on. There’s plenty of opportunity to get better, and that’s something I have to shift my focus to because you want to get better, you want to be in conversation with the best defensemen in the League. I’m not there yet, but obviously that’s where I see my opportunity to shine is to just get better and better every single year.”

Last season was his best since he joined the Red Wings for the start of the 2021-22 season. Seider had a career-high 60 points (10 goals, 50 assists) and led his team with a plus-15 rating. It was the first time in his five seasons that he has been a plus player for a season. Seider also ranked third in the NHL in ice time per game at 25:40.

A day after the Free Press’s Helene St. James spoke with an anonymous member of the Red Wings’ front office about the team’s general manager/president of hockey operations search…

Pro Hockey Rumors’ Gabriel Foley offers profiles of two of the candidate names bandied about on hockey Twitter by the Winged Wheel Podcast’s Ryan Hana and The Athletic’s Max Bultman:

The Detroit Red Wings’ search for their next general manager is fully underway. Another round of interviews was held on Thursday, per Ryan Hana of the Winged Wheel Podcast, to help Detroit narrow down what is believed to be a long list of assistant general managers from across the hockey world. Specifically, Florida Panthers AGM Brett Peterson and recently-hired San Jose Sharks AGM Jeff Kealty are both believed to be in talks per Max Bultman of The Athletic. Bultman also mentioned Carolina Hurricanes AGMs Darren Yorke and Tyler Dellow as potential candidates.

…

Peterson has formed a deep reputation across the hockey world. As a player, he was represented by current Panthers GM Bill Zito. That connection eventually rolled into a role with Wasserman Media Group, then in Florida’s front office, following Peterson’s retirement from his playing career. He has been a strong voice in Florida’s roster and cap management ever since, helping the cap-strapped club orchestrate acquisitions of Matthew Tkachuk, Brad Marchand, and Seth Jones. Peterson also served as GM of Team USA at the 2026 World Championships. He seems due for a step up after years of success in Florida and wields the roster-building knowledge needed to effectively retool a lineup.

Kealty is also a strong option after 25 years in the Nashville Predators organization. He climbed the ranks of Nashville’s Hockey Operations – beginning as an amateur scout in 2001, moving to Director of Amateur Scouting in 2007, and taking on the AGM title in 2018. Kealty’s presence underscored Nashville’s focus on drafting out of the United States and Europe. Those sights helped the Predators land transformative talents like Pekka Rinne, Roman Josi, Mattias Ekholm, and Viktor Arvidsson outside of the first round. Kealty was intended to succeed a quarter-century in Nashville with a move to the up-and-coming Sharks, though Detroit’s GM title may be too prestigious to pass up.

Continued; it’s always good to know who these folks after they’ve been mentioned as potential GM candidates.

The Hockey News’s Erik Cruikshank reports that David Alter spoke with Red Wings defenseman Moritz Seider during the NHL/NHLPA European Player Media Tour, and Seider weighed in on the NHL’s partnership with Bayern Munich, his durability, and the state of the Red Wings as a franchise.

Seider weighed in on the team’s inconsistency and annual March slides down the standings…

“It’s our common theme for the last past seasons,” Seider said. “We head into March in a really good position and we kind of just toss the season away. Don’t really have an answer for it, to be honest. If we knew what to fix, we would have done it, more than once now.”

While the 25-year-old may not have all the answers for the Red Wings’ late-season collapses, he believes the group needs to find more consistency in order to get to the next level.

“I don’t think we’re far off,” Seider added. “We can beat any team in the league, but we’ve got to do it over an 84-game schedule now, so there’s plenty of opportunity to hopefully be in a great position right from up front, but then just gain that momentum all the way to the end and hopefully be in a good position.”

He said this about the Wings’ managerial flux…

I suppose that this is free advertising for both the Red Wings, the NHL and EA Sports, but here you go anyway:

.@easportsnhl ratings just dropped 👀

Pre-order #NHL27 for early access!
🎮 » https://t.co/LTx5ZpPwyx pic.twitter.com/s0nGrFjNgc

— Detroit Red Wings (@DetroitRedWings) August 21, 2026

There are many folks who are pissed off about Seider’s low ranking as compared to other elite defensemen, but it’s just par for the course in terms of the under-estimation of the team and its players.

We may not all be optimists here–I’m just sharing my opinion, not trying to tell you what to think–but I think that we can all agree that Seider’s tremendous season during 2025-2026 merits a slightly higher ranking.

The Hockey Writers’ Tony Wolak follows up a top 25 Red Wings prospects list that was posted in mid-July with estimates of the NHL “ETA’s” (estimated times of arrival) of Wolak’s top 10 Red Wings prospects.

Here are three prospects which Wolak believes will make the Red Wings’ roster this season:

RW Michael Brandsegg-Nygard

NHL ETA: 2026-27

A breakout candidate, Michael Brandsegg-Nygard is expected to make the Red Wings out of camp. He finished the 2025-26 season on a high note and provides on-ice qualities—notably goal-scoring and tenacity—that the team lacks. The only question, though, is whether Brandsegg-Nygard will be given a top-nine scoring role or more of a depth, energy role in Detroit.

C Nate Danielson

NHL ETA: 2026-27

While Nate Danielson might start the season in Grand Rapids, I’m expecting him to be a full-time Red Wing by season’s end. Then again, an impressive training camp could propel Danielson into Detroit’s lineup sooner rather than later. The Red Wings need more from their centers and Danielson has the toolkit—playmaking instincts, defensive awareness, vision—to seize the opportunity.

LW Carter Mazur

NHL ETA: 2026-27

Carter Mazur’s ETA is easy – he’s unable to be assigned to Grand Rapids without waivers and is expected to join the Red Wings full-time in the fall. There’s no point in Detroit risking a waiver claim here. Mazur will likely start in the bottom six and be given the opportunity to earn more responsibility. His compete and hockey sense around the crease could help him do just that.

Continued; this is a fun twist upon the numerous “list articles” which find their way on the internet at this time of year. It reminds us that the gloom-and-doom predictions from the Pronmans and Luszczyszyns of the world aren’t set in stone.

The Athletic’s Corey Pronman conducts an “exercise” in predicting the NHL standings for the 2030-2031 season via the following criteria…

Today, I project what the NHL standings could look like in five seasons. This assessment is mostly based on a team’s young roster core combined with their current roster strength. For the sake of this exercise, I’m assuming that each team will keep every player currently on their roster under 35, even though I realize that certainly won’t happen.

And, perhaps predictably, Pronman has the Red Wings finishing 28th overall 5 seasons from now:

The Detroit News’s Ted Kulfan wraps up his examination of the Red Wings’ depth chart with a discussion about Detroit’s forward corps this morning, having already explored the Wings’ depth at defense and in goal.

As Kulfan suggests, Dylan Larkin’s status and/or the trade return for the Red Wings’ disgruntled captain could very well determine both the team’s direction and, very specifically, shape its depth “up front.”

With or without Larkin, however, the Wings lost Patrick Kane’s 16 goals and 57 points, as well as James van Riemsdyk’s 15 goals and 31 points; Kulfan is correct in suggesting that Detroit’s going to need “internal improvement” from within its current crop of forwards in order to assuage their losses in scoring.

It wouldn’t hurt to sign an Eeli Tolvanen or Michael Bunting in order to address scoring depth, but there’s no guarantee that outside help will be added to the mix before the regular season begins.

Here are some of Kulfan’s takes on the players who could add to the Wings’ attack:

The Free Press’s Helene St. James weighs in on the Red Wings’ managerial search via an anonymous source within the Red Wings’ organization, who insists that the team will not be rushed in searching for its next hockey executive:

“From the very beginning, we were never going to let the process or the timeline dictate” the decision on whom to hire, a person with knowledge of the Detroit Red Wings‘ organizational thinking told the Detroit Free Press. “We’re always going to really be super thorough. I can tell you that when we moved on from Steve, we did it really strategically.

“People forget that right around the Olympic break, we were not only contending for a playoff berth, we were in first place. So it’s hard to say, hey, Monday morning quarterback, why didn’t you do this in April? And the real reason is because we didn’t want to make knee-jerk decisions, we want to be super thorough.”

Per the Detroit Red Wings:

UPDATE: The Detroit #RedWings today acquired forward Sutter Muzzatti from the Nashville Predators in exchange for future considerations.

Additionally, the Red Wings have signed Muzzatti to a two-year, entry-level contract. pic.twitter.com/GAonDwOwvm

— Detroit Red Wings (@DetroitRedWings) August 20, 2026

Muzzatti, 23, is a 6’6,” 229-pound forward from Okemos, Michigan.

He spent 3 seasons playing for Rensselaer Polytechic Institute, and this past season, he played for Notre Dame, posting 13 goals and 19 assists for 32 points in 37 games played (while accumulating 42 penalty minutes).

Update: From FightingIrish.com:

The land of Red Wings fandom has been in a panic since Detroit Hockey Now’s Bob Duff claimed that the Red Wings haven’t interviewed a single candidate for GM/president of hockey operations as of yet while Duff appeared on the NHL Network.

Today, the Winged Wheel Podcast’s Ryan Hana contradicted Duff’s report with different information:

Multiple sources confirm that the Detroit Red Wings' GM/PoHO process is indeed already underway, with interviews having already taken place and continuing today. #LGRW

— Ryan Hana (@RyanHanaWWP) August 20, 2026

Despite Detroit sports radio’s desire to insist that the sky is falling over the Red Wings’ organization, and Wings fans’ panic about the front office situation, it makes absolutely no sense to assume that the Wings haven’t interviewed anyone because we haven’t heard about interviews taking place yet.

We don’t hear a whole hell of a lot about what takes place in the organization’s front office, period, and assuming the worst simply because “it’s quiet” is simply an inaccurate, pessimistic guess.

Update: Per The Athletic’s Max Bultman:

Good get by Ryan here. I don't know the specific interviewees, but I will say that some of the external names on my radar on this stage include Florida AGM Brett Peterson and San Jose AGM Jeff Kealty, and I continue to wonder about Carolina's Darren Yorke and Tyler Dellow as well https://t.co/5VyFpfTkej

— Max Bultman (@m_bultman) August 20, 2026