If I Were Steve Yzerman (2024 Edition)
Prior to the 2023-2024 season, I took stock of where I thought the “Yzerplan” was heading. At that time, I believed that after locking up Lucas Raymond and Moritz Seider, the Wings would have two options to proceed:
Aggressively clear cap space through trades and/or buyouts to be able to be a major player in 2024 free agency
Tread water through a similarly competitive roster while introducing more financial flexibility to focus on making a big splash in 2025
Fast forward to the 2024 offseason, and the decision is clearer and it’s unfortunately one most won’t want to hear:
The 2024 offseason will not be focused on fireworks. Instead, the Wings should focus on sustaining the success from this past season, bringing younger players into the fold, and optimizing their cap flexibility in order to be a major player in the 2025 offseason.
After a franchise-record eight consecutive seasons out of the playoffs, I know fans are antsy for things to get moving. If I were Steve Yzerman, I would be too. However, I think sitting tight one more season will ultimately offer the Wings the best chance of building a sustainable playoff contender.
From his end of season presser, it appears Yzerman is in a similar place, stating the following via Max Bultman:
For those familiar with this series, it will follow the same manner of decision-making where I lay out what I would do if I were in Steve’s shoes. For those unfamiliar with this series, I’ve tried my hand at this exercise in 2017, 2019, 2021, 2022, and 2023 (with 2017, 2019, and 2021 being lost when SBN went dark) and I always offer the following disclaimer:
A lot of this (maybe even all of it) will be wrong and I am ok with that.
The foundation of this is based in my analysis of statistics and video. I will attempt to link explainers to statistics along the way but if you aren't familiar with a term or concept, please ask!
These are the moves I would make if I were GM to best position the Red Wings in the short-term and long-term while maintaining as much cap and roster flexibility as possible.
These are not predictions for what I think will happen
NHL Draft Selection
I’ll start first with the NHL Draft set to take place on June 28th and June 29th. The Red Wings own the 15th overall pick and for the purposes of this exercise, that is the only pick I will be making as it’s next to impossible to project how things will go beyond the 1st round.
At 15, the Wings obviously have the decision to stay put, trade up, or trade back. Bultman covered each of these scenarios eloquently for The Athletic, offering potential moves within each scenario. My perspective on what to do is based on two things:
Is there a “must-have” player that has unanimous support amongst the amateur scouting team and front office that would be able to alter the expected timeline to compete?
Is the depth of the draft sufficient enough that entertaining a trade back would still allow for the Wings to select a player from the same tier as would be available at 15?
From Corey Pronman’s latest draft rankings, his tiers break out in the following fashion:
If trading up from 15, you’d like to ensure you land a player that will be a top of the lineup player which means you are looking at trading into the top-11, barring a player unexpectedly sliding. Using former Broad Street Hockey blogger, now Carolina Hurricanes GM Eric Tulsky’s market value trade-up curve, we would expect the cost of moving from 15 to 11 to be approximately the 15th + 47th overall picks. Moving from 15 to 8 would be approximately 15th + 47th + a 2025 2nd. Unless you’re absolutely certain you’re landing a home run, I don’t think the cost of trading up will make sense for Detroit here, particularly given the depth of the “Bubble Top and Middle of the Lineup” tier. There’s certainly a world where one of those top 8-10 guys slides into the 12-14 range in which case the cost of trading up would be less but as of now, I’m not heading in to the draft expecting a trade-up scenario to materialize but will re-evaluate as my pick approaches.
Trading back is also tougher to plan for but given the depth of the mid-1st round talents, there is a higher likelihood of this scenario presenting itself. Given the amount of time it will take for a mid-1st round pick to make the NHL roster (~45% of 1st round selections make the NHL within 3 years of their draft), the Wings can afford to take the best player available. Looking at their prospect pool, there may be a slight preference for a forward, particularly a skill forward with finishing talent. Should the Wings reach 15 with three of Michael Brandsegg-Nygård, Konsta Helenius, Michael Hage, and Cole Eiserman on the board, a trade-down scenario no further than 18th may be viable in order to ditch some salary or add an additional mid-to-late 2nd round pick.
Ultimately, I think this year makes the most sense to stay put at 15 and take one of the many talented forwards available. Using Pronman’s most recent mock-draft from June 19th (as he’s been one of the more accurate mocks the past two years), the following players would be gone:
Macklin Celebrini
Artyom Levshunov
Anton Silayev
Cayden Lindstrom
Ivan Demidov
Zeev Buium
Beckett Sennecke
Carter Yakemchuk
Sam Dickinson
Tij Iginla
Berkly Catton
Konsta Helenius
Zayne Parekh
Stian Solberg
Given this, I think there are three forwards I would entertain here - Brandsegg-Nygård, Eiserman, and Hage. Of those three, I lean towards Brandsegg-Nygård, followed by Hage, and then Eiserman. Brandsegg-Nygård, also known as MBN, is a 6’1” 200 lbs winger with a high-end motor, a great shot, above-average skating, and is arguably the best forechecker in the draft. He is tenacious in his pursuit of the puck, works the cycle very well, and when he gets time to release his wrist shot, it’s lethal. I believe MBN wrongly gets painted as a guy without an elite skill as that does a disservice to his shot and his forechecking capabilities. Should he develop to his absolute peak, I see the potential for him to become an Adrian Kempe-type player. Kempe was a much better skater and attacked the net a bit more but I believe MBN plays a more well-rounded game at this point in his development and has a slightly better shot.
With that being said, I’ll select Michael Brandsegg-Nygård with the 15th overall pick.
Restricted Free Agency
The contract extensions for Moritz Seider and Lucas Raymond are arguably the most important decisions that Yzerman has faced as the Wings’ GM. What Steve chooses to do with these extensions will not only dictate what the Wings are able to do this offseason, but if he’s able to obtain team-friendly deals for both, the Wings will have the opportunity to add significantly with the cap expected to go up “several million” over the next couple of seasons.
Hindsight is 20/20 and in a perfect world, Raymond and Seider would have been locked in to extensions as soon as they were eligible on July 1st, 2023. However, that’s not the reality and we’ve got to face the reality of the situation. The first step in putting together contract proposals for Seider and Raymond is to identify comparable deals. For more details on how I approach projecting contracts please check out the post below.
We’ll start first with Raymond followed by Seider and the rest of the RFA’s.
Over the final 18 games of the season, Lucas Raymond ranked 4th in the NHL in goals per 60 minutes (2.45), just ahead of Auston Matthews (2.42). He put the team on his back and very nearly willed them into the playoffs with his sublime performance. At just 22 years of age, the Wings potentially have a superstar on their hands. Using data from CapFriendly and Evolving-Hockey, we can identify some comparable contracts.
Based on signing age, production, and role, I think these comps offer the high, middle, and low ends of what we could see for Raymond’s contract. Using these comps, we can project that Raymond’s deal will likely come in at 6-8 years with a cap hit percentage between 9% and 11%. If I were Steve, I would push for eight years and aim for a cap hit percentage of roughly 9.25-9.75%. There’s certainly an option to go shorter and bridge like what the Dallas Stars did with Jason Robertson or go medium term like the Leafs and Avalanche did with Mitch Marner and Mikko Rantanen respectively. However, I think it’d be in the best interest of the Wings to get Raymond locked in for as long as possible with the cap poised to go up several million in the coming years and the unknown factor of potentially a new CBA after the 2025-2026 season.
Given all of this, I will re-sign Raymond on a 8-year deal at $8.25 million AAV (9.375% cap hit%). I believe this deal will give the Wings a lot of cap flexibility over the next three years as the cap is poised to go up by another $6-10 million in addition to locking up a burgeoning superstar through his age-30 season.
Next on the list is Seider who I believe is an infinitely more challenging contract to handle. From prior work done by Evolving-Hockey, the two most important factors in predicting contracts are ice time and points. With Seider, his career high TOI (23:08) was his sophomore year and his career high in points (50) was his rookie season. Thinking about this upcoming contract, the Wings will have to factor in how much they anticipate Seider to “jump” to the next level with respect to his scoring and usage. Seider already plays the toughest minutes of anyone in the league and since coming into the league he’s played the 12th most minutes of any player. There’s not really much more to jump up nor do the Wings want that.
As for scoring, Seider has registered 50, 42, and 42 points in each of his first three seasons, respectively. Scoring 40-50 points as a defenseman puts you amongst the top-20% of defenseman. The question facing Yzerman will be - is this approximately what we can expect for Seider’s scoring or is there a possibility he could make an Evan Bouchard/Rasmus Dahlin scoring jump into the upper echelon of defensemen? This question will ultimately determine how best to proceed.
From a stylistic perspective, I don’t see Seider becoming a 55+ point defenseman consistently. He’s tasked with the toughest defensive assignments, doesn’t consistently receive time on the top power play, and is asked to be much more responsible defensively. His ask is different than that of a Dahlin, Bouchard, Cale Makar, or Quinn Hughes and for the Wings that may be a blessing in disguise as they could potentially keep his cap hit down, similar to what Carolina has been able to do with Jaccob Slavin.
Given this, I think the Wings have a unique opportunity to approach Seider with a shorter bridge contract, similar to what Buffalo and Edmonton did with Dahlin and Bouchard. However, unlike Dahlin and Bouchard, the Wings are hedging on the fact that they don’t think Seider’s scoring jumps to the next tier that would force them to substantially increase their offer on his next deal the way Buffalo had to last summer and Edmonton will next summer. The gamble is essentially this:
You approach Seider with a 3-year deal that will expire with the Wings still owning his RFA rights
A shorter deal allows the Wings to keep the average annual value down for the next three seasons as the cap rises, allowing them to potentially be more aggressive this summer and each of those years with additions
A shorter deal may also be palatable for Seider knowing that the cap will go up significantly and his next deal may come in at a higher average annual value albeit a similar cap hit percentage
A three-year deal allows for Seider’s deal to expire at the same time as Alex DeBrincat, Andrew Copp, Nate Danielson, and Marco Kasper. If the Wings need to hit the reset button that offseason because things don’t pan out, they’ll have the flexibility to do so
When the Wings do go to renegotiate in three years, I don’t expect Seider’s scoring to have increased tremendously to the point that they will need to be paying him 11-12% of the salary cap. If his scoring does happen to go up tremendously (which would be incredible for the Wings), you’d be timing up his next deal to start when Copp and DeBrincat’s money falls off the books, allowing the Wings the ability to pay that money without an issue.
I’ll admit it’s not what most expect the Wings to do with Seider but I ultimately believe this allows the team the most financial flexibility to continue adding the next couple of years while they have DeBrincat and Larkin in their primes. Therefore, I’ll use the following comps to generate a bridge deal.
Using these comps, I believe Seider will come in around a 6.5-7% cap hit percentage on a three-year deal. Sergachev played a smaller role on a top team and McAvoy didn’t have as many games under his belt so I think Seider will come in above them. Werenski is the closest comparison based on role, team quality, and individual scoring. I think Seider will come in slightly above Werenski given the coverage around his difficult usage this past season. As such, I’ll sign Moritz Seider to a three-year, $6 million AAV which is a 6.8% cap hit percentage, gambling that I’ll be able to keep Seider’s next deal under a 9% cap hit percentage.
With Raymond and Seider out of the way, I’ll summarize the rest of the decisions on restricted free agents as follows:
Joe Veleno - 1 year, $1.3 million AAV
Jared McIsaac - decline qualifying offer, becomes UFA
Jonatan Berggren - rights traded
After a promising 2022-2023 season that saw him record 15 goals and 28 points in 67 GP, Berggren struggled to crack the Wings lineup in 2023-2024. Berggren appeared in just 12 games, registering two goals and six points with a 5v5 xGF% of 39%, the lowest of any player on the Wings. Looking ahead to 2024-2025, it’s hard to find a spot for Berggren in the lineup with Marco Kasper, Nate Danielson, and Carter Mazur all knocking on the door. The other complicating factor is that Berggren is no longer exempt from waivers should he fail to lock down a permanent roster spot. Given this, the best utilization of Berggren may actually be as a trade chip to clear additional cap space.
At his end of year presser, Yzerman discussed the logjam on defense and how Justin Holl ended up being the odd-man out last season. With Holl having two more years at $3.4 million AAV remaining, it’s imperative the Wings clear up that logjam in order to find a permanent spot for Simon Edvinsson and potentially Albert Johansson (who also is no longer waiver-exempt). As such, I will use Berggren as a trade chip to clear salary space and move Holl. One team that strikes me as being willing to bite on this type of deal is Utah. Utah has nine picks in the first four rounds this year, including three in the third round. I believe Utah would be willing to take Berggren, a talented forward who could immediately step into their middle-six as well as Holl who would likely have a permanent top-six role on the blue line. In exchange, I believe DET could acquire the Oilers 2024 3rd round pick that Utah owns.
To Utah: Rights to Jonatan Berggren, Justin Holl (no salary retained)
To Detroit: 2024 3rd round pick (EDM)
With Holl moved, the Wings will have seven defensemen under contract and could theoretically proceed with those seven in 2024-2025.
However this group would place a lot of faith in Simon Edvinsson being able to step up as an offensive play driver, Jake Walman finding his form from 2022-2023, and Albert Johansson being able to immediately contribute. I personally think that’s a lot to ask and the Wings should be in the market for a right-shot defenseman that can defensively support their young guys. Therefore, I think the Wings will have to explore moving one of Ben Chiarot or Olli Määttä. I don’t think Petry’s a candidate to be moved given that moving him doesn’t free up enough cap, he’s a right-shot D that the Wings are lacking, and he has a 15-team no-trade clause.
Between Määttä and Chiarot, I don’t believe it will be possible to move Chiarot without bringing some salary back or retaining. Even though he rebounded a bit last year, I don’t think a team would be willing to bite on his $4.75 million cap hit for two more seasons. That leaves us with Määttä who is under contract for one year at $3 million AAV. Määttä was an analytics darling last season and drew positive reviews for his work on the Wings’ 3rd pair. Despite this, I think moving Määttä offers the Wings the best chance of clearing the most money without impacting the roster significantly. Therefore I’ll propose the following deal to the San Jose Sharks:
To San Jose: Olli Määttä (no salary retained)
To Detroit: 2025 4th round pick (SJS)
With those two deals in place, the Wings will be able to approach unrestricted free agency with close to $17 million in cap space to bolster their roster.
Unrestricted Free Agency
Each year, The Athletic’s Shayna Goldman compares the teams outside the playoffs to what a “typical” Cup contender looks like. With Detroit this year, there were three significant needs identified:
Play-driving top-line winger
Top-4 defenseman capable of handling tough defensive minutes
Improved goaltending
Using this as a blue print, I believe we can narrow in on targets that make sense for Detroit. Starting with a play-driving winger, there are a handful that fit the bill, most notably Carolina’s Jake Guentzel. However, factoring in the number of areas the Wings need to address, they likely won’t be in the market for Guentzel who may command close to $10 million per year. Instead, I think Detroit would be wise to shift their targets to Vegas’ Jonathan Marchessault.
Marchessault ranks as Dom Luszczyszyn’s 2nd best winger available and he brings a lot to the table for Detroit. To start, he has 40-goal capabilities, forechecks hard, and is not a defensive black hole. He’s also been a dominant player in the postseason for Vegas the past several years. One of the things the Wings have been lacking for years is a pure goal scorer and Marchessault would immediately become the best goal scorer the Wings have had in a decade. Despite being 33 years of age, he’s not projected to fall off completely over the next three to four years, allowing the Wings to feel comfortable giving him a three year deal.
Of course, a deal with Marchessault automatically means the Wings will not be able to bring back Patrick Kane. While Kane was substantially better than expected this past season, I feel slightly more confidence in the 33-year-old Marchessault staying healthy over a three-year deal compared to the 35-year-old Kane, particularly when you factor in the 35+ contract rules. Additionally, I think at this point in their careers, the skillset Marchessault brings (goal-scoring, forechecking, better skater) better suits what the Wings need compared to what Kane brings (elite vision, power play passing, offensive zone entries). AFP Analytics has a three-year Marchessault deal at an AAV of $6.3 million while Evolving-Hockey has him at $6.9 million. To bring him to Detroit, I think the Wings will have to outbid several suitors so ultimately I will offer Marchessault a three-year, $7 million AAV contract to seal the deal.
After solving the primary issue upfront, I believe the next biggest issue is to add a top-four defenseman capable of handling tough minutes so that Derek Lalonde can ease the burden faced by Seider and Walman. For me, there are four defenseman that fit this bill and one wildcard that will be within Detroit’s budget:
Matt Roy, LAK (Age 29)
Brett Pesce, CAR (Age 29)
Chris Tanev, DAL (Age 34)
Dylan DeMelo, WPG (Age 31)
Alexandre Carrier, NSH (Age 27)
Of those five, I believe Matt Roy should be the primary target. Roy, a Michigan native, played 21 minutes a night against tough competition and was a defensive stalwart. He’s not going to score a ton of points for you but he will allow Lalonde to take some of the pressure off of Seider and Walman. Additionally, he would be a tremendous partner next to Edvinsson as he figures out the next level. Ultimately, this would be the most ideal scenario for Detroit.
However, Roy’s not projected to come particularly cheap. AFP Analytics has Roy projected to receive five years and $5.8 million AAV while Evolving-Hockey has Roy at five years, $6.1 million AAV. In order to lure him to Detroit, the Wings will either have offer the additional stability he desires such as a sixth year, or some form of trade protection to be able to bring down the AAV. I would offer Roy a 5-year, $5.6 million AAV deal with the first three years having a NMC followed by the final two years having a 10-team NTC. That may be enough to entice him to come back home.
After locking in Marchessault and Roy, I’ll shift my attention to rounding out the rest of the roster. I still need additional depth up front in the bottom-six as well as a backup goaltender willing to split time in Grand Rapids. Starting with Detroit’s UFA’s, I think the two that make the most sense to bring back are David Perron and Christian Fischer, solely for the fact that I believe you’ll be able to bring both back on short-term deals well below market value. Perron has expressed his desire to return to Detroit and can still be a capable producer on the power play and in optimized 5v5 situations. I will offer him a one-year, $2 million AAV to play on the third line and power play situations, similar to what the Wings did with Thomas Vanek a few years ago.
Fischer formed a defensively responsible fourth line with Andrew Copp and Michael Rasmussen this past season. He’s good on the penalty kill, a capable forechecker, and can chip in 5-10 goals from that usage. I believe the Wings would be able to bring him back at a one-year, $1.2 million AAV to play a similar role on the fourth line and PK and occasionally rotate out as the 13th F.
Last but not least is addressing the goaltending market. If you’ve followed my work the last few years, you’ll know I’m very wary of spending top dollar on goalies, particularly those that have not demonstrated they can be consistently good year-over-year. With Alex Lyon proving he can give you a solid 30-40 games, you have to hope Ville Husso can handle the rest. In the event that he can’t, I want to have a veteran goalie that I can count on to step in for 25 games if needed but would also be comfortable playing in Grand Rapids alongside Sebastian Cossa. Looking at the goalie market, my primary target would be Toronto’s Martin Jones.
For the Leafs, Jones was able to step in and start 19 games, winning 11 of them with a 2.87 GAA and a .902 SV%. When Ilya Samsonov’s game fell apart in December, Jones was able to keep the Leafs afloat long enough for Samsonov to figure it out. For Detroit, Jones could be carried as a third goalie or could start the year in the AHL similar to last season and come up should the situation present itself. I believe the Wings would be able to bring him in on a one-year, $925,000 AAV deal with the expectation that he largely plays in Grand Rapids but is able to jump up should the Wings need him.
Meet the 2024-2025 Detroit Red Wings
Alright without further ado, here’s the 2024-2025 Red Wings if I were Steve Yzerman.
Total Cap Hit: $87,969,307
On paper, I believe it’s a team that can be at least as competitive as last year’s team and with a little bit of luck, can potentially sneak in to the playoffs. Beyond next year, I’m building a team that has pieces to be competitive in 2025-2026 and 2026-2027 as I look to add elite talent through trades and/or free agency. Should I fail in my mission, I’ve got an out in the 2027 offseason to aggressively retool as I only have five players under contract for the 2027-2028 season as of now. With the 2025 unrestricted free agent crop currently including Leon Draisaitl, Mikko Rantanen, Mitch Marner, Brock Boeser, and Carter Verhaeghe and the 2026 crop including Connor McDavid, Kirill Kaprizov, Jack Eichel, and Adrian Kempe, there may be opportunities to land a big fish should one or two of them make it to market. We’ll leave exploring that for next season!
Prashanth- When you take a front office job, please let it be the Wings.
This is what I’ve been waiting for—and I love the cool-headed ness of your strategy. I’d love for this to be a playoff first round year, just to get a taste to set up for the back half of the 20’s being solid contention.