The Athletic’s Max Bultman has already examined part of the answers discerned from a survey of 2,100 Red Wings fans, and today, he examines the second part of his survey. Bultman reports that fans’ expectations of Moritz Seider are…surprisingly reasonable?
Question 1: What are your expectations for RHD Moritz Seider’s rookie season?
I was admittedly a bit nervous to look at the results to this question. Seider has been excellent since the Red Wings drafted him sixth in 2019 — so good that The Athletic’s Corey Pronman recently ranked him as the No. 17 U23 player in the world (including those already in the NHL) — and the potential for him to become a minute-munching, top-pair defenseman is clear. And yet, when a prospect like that is coming into a situation like Detroit’s — where hope has been hard to come by at the NHL level lately — it’s fair to wonder whether there will be too much pressure to be a superstar immediately.
Respondents, though, had a rather reasonable outlook on what Seider’s rookie year might look like. The most popular answer, at 45 percent, was that he would make a quick difference and hold his own in the top four all year — still an optimistic prediction by any definition, but one that has merit after Seider was the SHL’s top defenseman last season at 19. Perhaps more interestingly, though: a much higher percentage of readers (38.4 percent) expect Seider to take some early lumps than the percentage that expect him to be a Calder Trophy finalist (14.2 percent) or win it outright (2.1 percent). That’s a much more measured outlook heading into the defenseman’s (presumed) first year at the NHL level.
Continued (paywall); I think that Seider will have some difficulties adjusting to the smaller rink (the international rink is 100 feet wide as opposed to the NHL’s 85-foot-wide rink), faster pace of the NHL and the fact that NHL players have probably seen highlights of Seider lighting up SHL players with heavy hits, too…But I do expect him to have a fairly good rookie season.