What I'm watching around the Red Wings as NHL offseason heats up

New York Times

5 hours ago

With the draft set for Friday, the Stanley Cup awarded and trades beginning to fly, the NHL offseason is officially off and running.
And for a Red Wings franchise in need of some juice — after nine years outside the playoffs, but also not picking in the top 10 — there will be a lot of eyes on general manager Steve Yzerman and how he chooses to approach it.
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Here's what I'm watching most closely from Detroit as the offseason starts to heat up.
Two months ago, as both Kane and Yzerman spoke of mutual interest in the star winger staying in Detroit, this felt like a layup — something that could maybe even get done early in the offseason.
With the calendar less than a week from July 1 and no extension signed, it's looking a little less certain. Even though I still think Kane ends up staying put, my sense is the veteran is at least weighing his options.
The fit in Detroit has been very good, with Kane getting top-six deployment, playing a key role on one of the NHL's best power plays and bringing some needed poise and presence to the Red Wings' lineup. No Red Wing has scored more game winners than Kane (13) in his season and a half in Detroit, and for a team that has struggled to deliver in big moments, that's an important attribute. So is his playmaking, which remains all-world.
He may not be the first into board battles or take any shifts on the penalty kill, but Kane has become an important piece, and letting him get away would create a big hole that Detroit would struggle to fill, especially at the price he's been playing for.
For that reason, and because of how good the role and fit have been for Kane, I continue to believe the two sides will find a way to stay together, just like they did last year. But that negotiation did go right to the buzzer, and it's looking like this one could too.
All along, this has stood out as a top need for the Red Wings this summer — perhaps the top need. In Moritz Seider and Simon Edvinsson, Detroit has two young pillars on the back end who both performed quite well in tough deployment last season. They're the team's present and future. But they still need some insulation, and while Ben Chiarot and Albert Johansson both put in regular shifts on the top two pairings last year to help Detroit get by, the ideal situation would be to bump at least one of them down in favor of a legit top-four regular.
The issue, of course, is finding one in a free-agent market that's already fairly thin and could be even thinner by July 1 if Aaron Ekblad extends in Florida. There are still some names who could fit in free agency — Vladislav Gavrikov of the Los Angeles Kings and Dante Fabbro of the Columbus Blue Jackets stand out — but I do wonder if the better path for the Red Wings may be via trade, particularly with some of the restricted free agent names potentially available.
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We've discussed the New York Rangers' K'Andre Miller and Vegas Golden Knights' Nicolas Hague as natural fits, both of whom fit the Red Wings' typical profile of long, rangy defenders on the left side. Miller would be the higher-end option with his excellent skating and has more experience playing in a top four, but he'd also be more expensive. Hague would be a bit of a bet whether he can translate good results on the third pair for the Golden Knights into more minutes elsewhere, but would be more cost-effective, in terms of both contract and acquisition cost.
The Calgary Flames' Rasmus Andersson was the top name on Chris Johnston's trade board on Tuesday. Andersson has one year left before becoming an unrestricted free agent, which makes him a rental, but if Detroit felt confident it could sign him, he'd be a nice veteran fit next to Edvinsson on the second pair at age 28. San Jose's Mario Ferraro could be an interesting change-of-scenery candidate, as a penalty killer who has taken top-four minutes with the Sharks and will lay his body on the line.
And then there is the higher-end, more pipe dream name: right-hander Noah Dobson of the Islanders. Dobson is an RFA due for a massive new contract, as a 6-foot-4 righty with a 70-point season on his resume at age 25. That 70-point season looks like a bit of an outlier, with more of a 40-50 point baseline — but even then, Dobson is a major asset and would be highly appealing if available.
Miller and Hague are the two situations I'm watching most closely, though, with the Rangers seemingly keen to remodel their blue line (and having just given up the 12th pick in Friday's draft to the Penguins), and the Golden Knights already not flush with cap space and always a threat to chase the big fish.
For as much as the Red Wings' collecting goalies has become a meme, it's for a reason: they just aren't that happy with the play they've gotten in net.
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They began the offseason by revealing goaltending coach Alex Westlund would not return, and made clear they didn't feel the issues were just about coaching.
'We need better goaltending, and that's not just on Alex Westlund,' head coach Todd McLellan said. 'That's on the goaltenders, the head coach and everybody else that's involved in it.'
'We need the goalie to stop the puck more,' Yzerman said.
Yzerman did make a move for a goaltender with term on his contract last trade deadline, bringing in Petr Mrázek. But the 33-year-old Mrázek has finished three of the past four seasons with a save percentage below .900 and feels more like taking a flier than a surefire solution next to soon-to-be 38-year-old Cam Talbot.
Detroit does have Sebastian Cossa knocking on the door at AHL Grand Rapids, but he struggled down the stretch with the Griffins and, for that reason, is tricky to project as an early-season solution.
For all those reasons, it made sense when I heard earlier this offseason that the Red Wings could be looking for a goalie. But a weak goalie class in free agency made it seem like a back-burner idea. There are some names on Johnston's updated trade board, though, who could represent meaningful upgrades, though they wouldn't be without risk, nor cost.
The Anaheim Ducks' John Gibson has been an intriguing trade candidate for years now, and by this point, his $6.4 million cap hit for the next two years doesn't look too scary. But before this past season's .911 save percentage (in 29 games), Gibson had largely hovered between .899 and .904 behind a bad Ducks team. It's a little hard to know what to make of him, and Anaheim's ask may not be cheap, either, as they look to emerge from a rebuild.
Thatcher Demko would be a high-ceiling option, to be sure. He's 29 and has two top-10 Vezina finishes to his name, including finishing as runner-up in 2024. He's also struggled with injuries, though. He's played more than 35 games just twice in his career, and will need a new contract in a year. A healthy Demko would be the kind of goalie who could seriously elevate a team like Detroit, similar to what Linus Ullmark did for Ottawa a year ago. But he wouldn't come cheap.
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Frankly, it's hard for me to see Detroit paying the price for either of those two goalies, considering Cossa should be NHL-ready within a year. But the Red Wings haven't had a true No. 1 at the position in a long time now, and if there's any concern on Cossa, then it could be something worth considering.
This is a little less tangible, but when I asked Yzerman in April about how to address the team's March collapses in recent seasons, the first thing he pointed to was needing more depth in scoring — both in terms of bottom-six scoring and five-on-five scoring from the top six. But he also said he wants the team to be 'harder,' demanding more of that from the team's existing players and bringing in some new faces to the mix.
It's not going to be easy, as every team in the league seeks to match the hard-edged identity that just led the Panthers to back-to-back Stanley Cups. Mason Marchment would have been a great candidate, and he went for a great price (a third and a fourth-rounder) from the Dallas Stars to the Seattle Kraken last week. But there are still names who could check those boxes.
Corey Perry is 40, but still has edge in his game and scored 19 goals last season. Another Oiler, Connor Brown, is a multi-time 20-goal scorer who can bring a harder brand of offense in a bottom six. Brandon Tanev is another physical, down-lineup player who can chip in double-digit goals.
Whether Detroit can land one of those players, we will see. But I do expect to see Detroit try to target depth scoring, ideally with some of that harder element mixed in.
I don't have any new info on this one, but I remain intrigued to see how Detroit decides to proceed with Vladimir Tarasenko, who is owed $4.75 million next season but didn't seem to jell well in Detroit. His 11 goals and 33 points were both below expectations, even at age 33.
Because of the cap hit, it may be hard for the Red Wings to find a taker for Tarasenko on the trade market. The buyout window has been open for nearly a week now, and there's been no action here. Would the Red Wings retain money to deal him, or do they simply hold onto him, sort of like an insurance policy if they can't upgrade over the next week?
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Yzerman did say in April he felt Tarasenko's play was better than his production last year, and that he was hopeful Tarasenko would give Detroit more next year, so perhaps the Red Wings plan to keep him anyway.
But the veteran winger simply wasn't consistently impactful enough last year, so in a week that's sure to have plenty of moving parts — some in Detroit's control, some not — how the Red Wings handle Tarasenko is one more thing to watch.
(Top photo of Patrick Kane: Patrick Smith / Getty Images)