Tweet of note: The summer development camp starts a busy day for the Red Wings’ media corps

I’m not at the BELFOR Training Center today due to a fundraising deficit, so we’ll rely on the Wings’ beat writers for coverage of the second day of the Red Wings’ summer development camp:

The Red Wings will hold media availabilities with select players during this afternoon–and some ZOOM calls with some of the UFA signings–and the 2024-2025 schedule is coming out today as well. It’s going to be a busy day.

The Wings have covered the development camp through Instagram thus far:

Continue reading Tweet of note: The summer development camp starts a busy day for the Red Wings’ media corps

Where the goal-scoring deficit stands

Per Detroit Hockey Now’s Kevin Allen, here’s a plain and simple summary of the Red Wings’ goal-scoring losses over the course of the first day of free agency:

With the loss of David Perron, Jake Walman, Shayne Gostisbehere and probably Daniel Sprong, the Red Wings have lost 57 goals off last season’s team. Walman (12) and Gostisbehere (10) were the team’s top goal-scoring defensemen, while Sprong netted 18 goals and Perron 17. Sprong is still available in the free agent market. How will Detroit recoup those goals? Detroit Hockey Now will address that with a story later this week.

Continued (and I’m looking forward to Allen or Bob Duff addressing the issue); at this point, unless the Wings sign a Tarasenko or van Riemsdyk, the answer is going to be through a trade or two.

Some ‘burning questions’ regarding the Red Wings’ unrestricted (and restricted) free agency plans

The Hockey News’s Sam Stockton discusses three “burning questions” which the Red Wings face after the first day of free agency, including an interesting take on the Red Wings’ need to re-sign Lucas Raymond and Moritz Seider, their two big restricted free agents:

(III) Did Detroit free up enough cap space to sign Lucas Raymond AND Moritz Seider to max-term deals?

In a bit of restricted free agent news on a day generally devoted to the UFAs, the Montreal Canadiens signed the 2022 number one overall pick Juraj Slafkovsky to a massive eight-year, $60.8 million extension.  What does that have to do with the Red Wings?  Simple, it’s a reminder that to sign a young star to an eight-year extension, you have to offer that player a higher AAV than their hitherto performance actually justifies.  Slafkovsky is coming off a nice encouraging developmental season, but at just 50 points, he would hardly seem a candidate for such a robust raise if that raise were for the next two or three seasons instead of the next eight.  Was a quiet July 1 and the cap-clearing Jake Walman trade a bid to set the stage for eight-year extensions for Moritz Seider and Lucas Raymond?  We knew going into the summer those deals would be Yzerman’s most important piece of business.  The question was always term and dollars, not whether the two would stay.  Now it’s about time to answer that question, and it appears Detroit may be better equipped to max-term contracts, though of course that requires willingness from Seider and Raymond too.

Stockton continues, and he’s right–the Red Wings’ cost for Raymond probably went up due to the Slafkovsky’s overly generous contract.

I also want to say that it’s really great to have Sam and Connor Eargood on the Red Wings’ beat at the Hockey News. They’ve been a great addition to the Red Wings coverage out there!

Morning news: Khan, St. James discuss the Wings’ free agency moves (or the lack thereof)

MLive’s Ansar Khan addresses the Red Wings’ underwhelming start to the free agency period in a subscriber-only article this morning, noting that the Red Wings haven’t substantially improved the team as of this morning, which has the fan base in a state of discontent…

That also was the sentiment one year ago on this date. Then Yzerman traded for Alex DeBrincat a week later and the outlook changed. Then he signed Kane in late November and the Red Wings missed out on a playoff spot due to a tiebreaker.

So, it might be too early to draw conclusions. For now, they look to be slightly better defensively, with Talbot in net, young defenseman Simon Edvinsson in the top four from the start of the season and Gustafsson on the third pairing in place of Gostisbehere.

That’s important after the team finished 24th in the NHL in goals against per game (3.33).

But they have lost a significant chunk of offense from a team that ranked ninth in goals per game (3.35). Gostisbehere, Perron and Daniel Sprong, who remains unsigned, were three of their top eight scorers, combining for 45 goals and 146 points. Including Walman’s 12 goals, that’s 57 goals subtracted from last season’s roster.

They have not yet addressed this area. They have roughly $7 million in cap space (factoring in what it’ll likely cost to re-sign restricted free agent Moritz Seider and Lucas Raymond) and need two more forwards.

Khan continues…

And the Free Press’s Helene St. James also discusses the Red Wings’ free agency moves, noting that Cam Talbot and Erik Gustafsson are really journeymen players. Here’s what she has to say about the team’s defensemen:

Continue reading Morning news: Khan, St. James discuss the Wings’ free agency moves (or the lack thereof)

Video link: Red Wings coach Derek Lalonde discusses the Wings’ ‘next step’ with WWNY

I can’t embed it, but Red Wings coach Derek Lalonde spoke with WWNY 7 News regarding his team’s progress made during the 2023-2024 season, and necessary progression as the team moves forward in the 2024-2025 season. It’s a brief clip, but…

He discusses taking the “next step” and the Wings’ goal of framing their offseason around making a more substantial playoff push.

A respectful disagreement regarding roster-building

The best analogy I can give as to what it’s like to build an NHL team–and perhaps over-build it–is that the roster in the summer can look like maybe the team should build a shiny convertible, but NHL GM’s and front offices are instead trying to make sure to put snow tires on a rugged SUV that’s got to withstand a long winter’s worth of wear and tear instead.

Long story long, rosters are often overbuilt, with “too much depth” at particular positions for the sake of accommodating injuries and inconsistencies in performances.

So I’m going to take a step and respectfully disagree with the Hockey News’s estimable Connor Eargood regarding his grading of the Red Wings’ moves in free agency, because there are times that you need more depth than you think you might on July 1st:

Jack Campbell, G
Contract: 1 year, $775,000
Grade: B-

This Campbell signing is most likely meant to bring him in as the second punch of a Grand Rapids tandem with Sebastian Cossa. While I like that Campbell can share the lessons of his up-and-down, journeyman career with Cossa as a mentor, Yzerman’s approach to goaltending lacks clear direction. The Red Wings didn’t really get better by bringing Campbell and Cam Talbot into the fold, and they’re probably going to have to trade one of Ville Husso or Alex Lyon or otherwise risk losing them on waivers. Instead of going out and getting a better goalie, the Red Wings just gave themselves more flawed pieces to work with.

Cam Talbot, G
Contract: $2.5 million x 2 years
Grade: B-

The same as Campbell, Talbot is part of the rudderless solution in net. Instead of going out with some aggression and getting a guy that can be an X-factor — even if it takes assets to get the four year or more guy that Yzerman wanted — the Red Wings got more of the same. Talbot was one of the lead dogs of this free agent goalie class, but he’s going to be 37 in a few days and he’s not the biggest upgrade from one of Husso or Lyon. This could be proven wrong. Talbot could be a big contributor like he was in L.A., when he played 54 games and saved 16.2 goals above expected according to Moneypuck. But, Talbot is not the star that Detroit could benefit from.

Continued (and it’s a good read); at this point, with Ville Husso’s future uncertain and Sebastian Cossa’s future development paramount, it might be better to have to worry about losing a goaltender on waivers come October than it is to have too few goaltenders for training camp.

I’m of the belief that the Red Wings are probably trying to move Husso and his contract, and if they can’t move him…They’ll sort things out as necessary at that particular point in time.

And I happen to like the signing of Talbot as an interim starter, but that’s just me.

Via KK: As the Trouba Turns, maybe we can put this to rest

This is turning into a soap opera. Via Paul Kukla of Kukla’s Korner/Abel to Yzerman comes a report that we don’t necessarily need to know…But it is the bottom line as to why Jacob Trouba doesn’t want to accept an in-place deal to send him to the Detroit Red Wings.

The New York Post’s Larry Brooks expounds upon the “family reasons” that Trouba is probably rejecting the trade, and at this point, it’s both good to know–and the kind of stuff that he doesn’t need to explain, as a professional athlete and family with a personal life:

When Trouba signed this current seven-year, $56M contract in July of 2019 after having been acquired as a pending restricted free agent from Winnipeg, his five-year no-movement clause was designed to expire in conjunction with his wife Kelly Tyson-Trouba’s completion of her three-year residency at a New York hospital.

But Dr. Tyson-Trouba’s residency was deferred for a year at the start so that the program which she is required to complete will end instead on July 1, 2025. The Troubas also welcomed their first child, a boy named Axel, in mid-January.

There is no guarantee that Jacob Trouba would accept a trade even to a club on his approved list if that means leaving his wife and nine-month-old (as of training camp) behind. It is not as if Dr. Tyson-Trouba can pick up, transfer her credits to another hospital, accompany her husband and still be licensed as a physician.

We are told that has become part of the league-wide conversation, with several teams that otherwise would have been in big-time on Trouba now likely to wait until next year when Dr. Tyson-Trouba’s residency ends with the defenseman having one final season on his contract.

Continued; the sticky wicket of this is obvious here, and it’s not just a matter of propriety: it’s not Kelly Trouba’s fault that she’s got a child and a career to think about…

And a decent minority of the fans who have followed this story line might very well blame Mrs. Trouba for not “sucking it up” and following her husband where the Rangers want to trade him, because that’s a sizeable minority of sports fans for you.

That’s not how life works. And now that we know the source of these “family issues,” let’s put the trade talk to rest and leave the Troubas alone to deal with the complications when personal lives and professional sports collide.

Press release: Red Wings sign forward Joe Snively for one year

Per the Detroit Red Wings:

RED WINGS SIGN FORWARD JOE SNIVELY TO ONE-YEAR, TWO-WAY CONTRACT

  … Forward Won Back-to-Back Calder Cup Championships with AHL’s Hershey Bears in 2023 and 2024 …

DETROIT – The Detroit Red Wings today signed center Joe Snively to a one-year, two-way contract.

Snively, 28, skated in three games with the Washington Capitals during the 2023-24 season. The 5-foot-9, 176-pound forward spent the majority of the 2023-24 campaign with the American Hockey League’s Hershey Bears and ranked among the team leaders with 14 goals (6th), 45 assists (1st), 59 points (1st), two power play goals (T7th), 21 power play points (T1st) and one overtime goal (T2nd) in 69 games. Snively also tallied 18 points (4-14-18) and 26 penalty minutes in 20 postseason contests with the Bears, helping the club win their second straight Calder Cup championship. He split the 2022-23 season between Washington and Hershey, logging four points (2-2-4) in 11 games with the Capitals, in addition to 27 points (9-18-27) and six penalty minutes in 32 games with the Bears. Snively also earned a Calder Cup title with Hershey in 2023, recording 15 points (2-13-15) in 20 playoff matchups. Originally signed by Washington as an undrafted free agent on March 18, 2019, Snively has totaled 11 points (6-5-11), a plus-five rating and two penalty minutes in 27 games with the Capitals since 2021-22. He has also racked up 172 points (58-114-172), a plus-57 rating and 72 penalty minutes in 220 AHL games with the Bears.

Continue reading Press release: Red Wings sign forward Joe Snively for one year

Wings get a ‘C’ from THN’s Proteau for free agency moves

The Hockey News’s Adam Proteau gives the Red Wings a middling grade for their middling first-day-of-free-agency performance:

The Red Wings have made some curious moves in recent years. We’re still not sure why GM Steve Yzerman gave Justin Holl a three-year, $10.2-million contract last summer.

There’s lots of room for questions regarding their moves Monday as well.

Bringing back star winger Patrick Kane on a one-year contract on Sunday is a win, but other than that, their moves came mostly on ‘D’ and in goal.

Goalie Cam Talbot is now 36, and blueliner Erik Gustafson is 32 – oh, and depth signing and good guy Jack Campbell is now fourth on the depth chart behind Talbot, Alex Lyon and Ville Husso. Veteran D-man Shayne Gostisbehere left the team for the Carolina Hurricanes.

All in all, it’s an underwhelming crop of new faces, considering the hype the Red Wings had heading into the off-season and the cap space they cleared. Detroit may once again be on the outside of the playoff picture next spring.

Grade: C

Continued; here’s hoping that the Wings and their fallible GM aren’t done.