3 Free Agent Defenceman That Detroit Should Target
Three defenceman the Detroit Red Wings should look to sign this upcoming off-season
Image
The Detroit Red Wings are heading into a very important off-season for the franchise, as the young core is beginning to mature and with a couple key additions could make their first return to the playoffs in nine seasons.
Advertisement
One of the most glaring issues the team needs to address is its blue line. The defense produced 134 points, which ranked sixth in the NHL, but struggled to contain opposing attacks and finished in the bottom 12 in goals-against average at 3.16 last season.
The issue also extends to the crease, as regular starters Cam Talbot and Alex Lyon finished with goals-against averages of 2.93 and 2.81 respectively, ranking 33rd and 28th among NHL goalies with at least 30 starts.
More Red Wings: Shocking Sportsbook Insights For Red Wings Next Season
The Red Wings need a reset with their backend entirely and new bench boss Todd McLellan should help. With his insights and a new defensive structure that succeeded in a big way like during his time with the LA Kings, they should be able to defend better but will still need improvements.
Advertisement
Steve Yzerman and company in Detroit's management team need to find better options than going back to veterans like Jeff Petry and Ben Chiarot, who are both past their prime.
Luckily for them, this off-season presents plenty of free agent defencemen that can be difference makers for the Red Wings. They currently rank 13th in projected available cap space with $21.3 million, according to PuckPedia.
Vladislav Gavrikov - Los Angeles Kings
The 29-year-old Russian native made his presence felt during the Kings first round series versus the Oilers and has generated many interested suitors in acquiring one of the most underrated defensive defenceman in the NHL.
Gavrikov is criminally underrated after posting a +26 plus/minus, which ranked among the top 12 in the NHL. He averaged just over 23 minutes per game, the second most on the Kings, and led the team in blocked shots with 140, which ranked 36th in the league.
Advertisement
He also logged the third most shorthanded minutes across the NHL, at almost 270 minutes on the kill, underlining his value as one of the league's best penalty killers.
More Red Wings: Red Wings Have Pieces to Make Offer for Stars' Robertson
Nate Schmidt - Florida Panthers
The 33-year-old veteran is a relatively cheap low-cost option that has proven to be highly effective for the Panthers, who may be on their way to their second straight Stanley Cup.
Schmidt could provide insights on what made the Panthers so successful with their elite defensive system that the Red Wings could learn from and incorporate it into their own.
Advertisement
After recording 12 points and 34 hits through 22 games this postseason, he may be a bit of a hot commodity for a veteran blueliner to come in and work with a younger team so it may cost more than expected.
Bookmark The Hockey News Detroit Red Wings team site to stay connected to the latest news, game-day coverage, and player features.
Ryan Lindgren - Colorado Avalanche
Lindgren would be a valuable addition to the Red Wings' blue line, bringing steady defensive play and reliability. Last season, he averaged 19:42 of ice time over 72 games with the Rangers and Avalanche, adding 128 blocked shots and 80 hits.
He led the Rangers in penalty kill minutes the year prior and consistently drew heavy defensive zone assignments, showing he's trusted in tough situations. His career plus-minus of +54 since 2019–20 reflects his ability to keep opponents off the scoresheet.
Advertisement
Lindgren won't drive offense but excels at limiting chances and supporting more mobile partners, making him an ideal addition to stabilize a top-four role and bolster the penalty kill.
Never miss a story by adding us to your Google News favorites.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
19 minutes ago
- Yahoo
U.S. Open: J.J. Spaun hits the shots of his life to win his first major
OAKMONT, Pa. — Some major championships are exquisite exhibitions of athletic grace and mental tenacity, symphonies conducted on fairways. You watch them, and you feel thrilled, energized, even inspired by the generational talent on display. The 2025 U.S. Open at Oakmont was none of that. J.J. Spaun won the tournament with a score of -1, but the better way to put it might be he survived the tournament. This was a down-in-the-mud fistfight, a battle against the elements, the course, the field and the self. Advertisement With six holes remaining and rain falling, five players were tied for the lead: Sam Burns, Adam Scott, Tyrrell Hatton, Carlos Ortiz and J.J. Spaun. One stroke behind them: Viktor Hovland and Robert MacIntyre. MacIntyre, with a birdies at 14 and 17, got himself to 1-under. Playing ahead of the pack, MacIntyre stood over a par putt at 18 to set the mark, and he drained it. He was in the clubhouse at +1. Would it hold? Ortiz bowed out with a double bogey at 15, Hovland with a bogey there, and Hatton with bogeys at 17 and 18. Burns ejected with a brutal break at 15 when he wasn't granted relief from what he believed was standing water. Forced to hit it where it sat, he hooked it into the rough, leading to a double bogey. Advertisement Scott, trying to win his first major since 2013, found the rough on just about every hole coming home, and he was done. And then J.J. Spaun hit the shot of his life. Or maybe, the second greatest: That led to a birdie, a one-stroke lead and one par on 18 for the U.S. Open championship. He didn't get par. He drained the putt for birdie ... from 64 feet. "Just to finish it off like that is just a dream," Spaun said after. "You watch other people do it. You see the Tiger chip, you see Nick Taylor's putt, you see crazy moments. To have my own moment like that at this championship, I'll never forget this moment for the rest of my life." Advertisement This was a vintage U.S. Open, brutal and uncompromising and requiring everything the leaders had to give. Those who couldn't bring it home will remember this one for a long, long time, and Spaun will remember it forever. Oakmont plays the starring role At most majors, the course is a supporting character, taking a couple key lines here and there but deferring to the stars. Oakmont thundered onto the national stage, its history of hurling around the game's best like dirty laundry making for a sinister overture heading into the tournament. Oakmont's quirks — greased-mercury greens, abandon-all-hope rough, the Church Pew bunkers, the highway that cuts through the heart of the course — all combined to make the course itself the star of the show. No course has hosted more U.S. Opens than Oakmont, and virtually every one of the nine prior to this year featured drama, controversy and gritty, muddy scrambles for the trophy. Advertisement So in retrospect, the entire golf world was pretty naive in thinking that Scottie Scheffler would come in here and ransack the joint, that Bryson DeChambeau would overpower the old warhorse, that Xander Schauffele or Collin Morikawa or Rory McIlroy would use some of their modern wizardry to take down a course that's been humbling champions longer than their grandfathers have been alive. 'When you're in the fairway, there's opportunity,' Scheffler said on Tuesday, 'but what's so special about this place is pretty much every time you're off the fairway it's going to be very difficult for you to get the ball to the green.' Advertisement (This is what is known as foreshadowing.) J.J. Spaun, best known prior to this week as McIlroy's playoff victim in this year's Players Championship, leaped out to the Thursday lead with a bogey-free 66. 'I kind of came out here with no prior history at Oakmont, not really knowing what to expect even U.S. Open-wise. This is only my second one. I don't know if that freed me up in any aspect,' he said. 'I'm just overly pleased with how I started the tournament.' Others, not so much. McIlroy struggled to a +4 first round and left without speaking to the media. DeChambeau, completely twisted up by the greens, made a mental mistake in dropping his ball on the 12th, but was saved from a penalty by a friendly official. Advertisement 'This golf course can come up and get you pretty quick and you've just got to be on your game, and it got me, and I wasn't fully on my game,' DeChambeau said after his Thursday round. 'Pretty disappointed with how I played.' Si Woo Kim offered up the most direct perspective: 'Honestly, I don't even know what I'm doing on the course,' he said. 'Kind of hitting good, but feel like this course is too hard for me.' As tough as Thursday was, Friday proved even more difficult. Spaun surrendered two strokes off his total and gave up the lead to Burns, who finished the day at -3. DeChambeau imploded, missing the cut by three strokes. Phil Mickelson, so often frustrated by the U.S. Open, suffered one last indignity when he melted down on his final three holes and missed a chance to play the weekend by mere inches. Shortly after a disappointed Mickelson left the course, the skies opened up, dousing the few players left on the course and halting the second round early. That led directly to one of the few feelgood stories of this brutal weekend: qualifier Philip Barbaree, with his wife Chloe caddying for him, came back on Saturday morning needing a par on the tough ninth to make the cut. He pulled it off and celebrated; who cares if he finished the tournament at +24? He had a once-in-a-lifetime moment on one of the toughest courses on the planet. 'Knowing that I pretty much had to come out and make par on one of the hardest holes on the course, and then to actually do it, that's what you practice for, that's what you care about,' Barbaree said. 'To be able to pull off a shot like that when it matters, and then with her on the bag, it's special.' Stars exit stage right and left and into the fescue Burns reached -4 on Saturday but couldn't extend his lead; Spaun stuck right with him to finish at -3. Also at -3, and checking in from 2013: Scott, competing in his 97th major. The overnight rains softened the course up; the field averaged two strokes better on Saturday than on the two days prior. Advertisement Meanwhile, stars flickered and fizzled. Scheffler, McIlroy, Rahm, Schauffele … none of the game's best could keep up with the pace set by Burns, Spaun and Scott. (Yes, that is a real sentence.) McIlroy, in particular, remained frustrated at his inability to capitalize on his epic Masters win, and unloaded his frustrations on the media by speaking for the first time after a major round since Augusta. 'I feel like I've earned the right to do whatever I want to do,' McIlroy said, when pressed about his decision not to speak after his rounds. He later declared that all he wanted out of Sunday was 'hopefully a round in under four-and-a-half hours and get out of here.' McIlroy's frustrations continued on Sunday, though on the positive side he pulled off one of the most impressive club tosses you'll ever see: But McIlroy, like most of the other superstars, was irrelevant to the tournament's final outcome. Burns (-4) and Scott (-3) made up the final pairing, with Spaun (-3) and Viktor Hovland (-1) just ahead of them, and Carlos Ortiz (E) and Tyrrell Hatton (+1) in the third-to-last group. Advertisement 'If I've said it once, I've said it a hundred times, but this golf course is difficult,' Burns said Saturday evening. 'It takes a lot of patience.' He had no idea how right he would be. Survival Sunday The carnage began early for the leaders. Scott bogeyed the first and third holes, while Burns bogeyed the second and fifth. Ahead of them, Ortiz, Hatton and Hovland all struggled. Spaun, in particular, surrendered five strokes in his first six holes … which, under normal conditions, would have ejected him from the tournament. But these were not normal conditions. Not all of it was his fault. He would later have a ball hit a rake, another spin off the green, and when he made the turn, he had five bogeys on his card and had dropped from the top of the leaderboard. Advertisement Soon thereafter, the weather arrived. At 4:01 p.m., with Burns and Scott standing on the tee at the 8th, the soaking rains returned, washing out the entire field for a full 96 minutes. The course flooded, requiring a squeegee-wielding maintenance crew to attempt to get Oakmont playable once again. Play resumed at 5:40, and almost immediately Burns and Scott both got into trouble off the tee at the par-3 8th, the longest par-3 in U.S. Open history, Burns off the edge of the green and Scott into the rough. Burns was able to get up and down for his par, but Scott dropped a shot to fall back to even. Ahead of them, Hatton and Hovland both fell to +2. Advertisement More critically, Burns surrendered a stroke at the 9th when his tee shot found some of the longest hay on the property on the left side of the hole. Scott's tee shot ended up on a cart path along the right side of the hole, but he was able to convert his birdie. Burns thus turned at -1, Scott at even par, and Ortiz, Hatton, Spaun and Hovland all at +2. And right about then, the rains started up again. This time around, though, there was no thunder, meaning the players were getting doused but continued to play. On the first hole of the inward nine, Burns extended his lead with a birdie to get back to -2. Ahead of him, Ortiz was able to chop his way back into the hunt with a birdie on 11 that dropped him to +1. The tournament turned at No. 15 for both Burns and Scott. Burns, standing in a puddle, asked for relief. He wasn't given it, then hooked his shot over the green, leading to a double bogey. From there, everyone but Spaun and MacIntyre fell off. Advertisement Playing ahead of Spaun, all MacIntyre could do was wait in the clubhouse, where he watched Spaun produce the two most magical shots of his life. Earlier this year, Spaun lost The Players Championship to Rory McIlroy in a playoff. It was a crushing defeat for a player who had one PGA Tour victory on his resume. Three months later, he's a major champion.
Yahoo
20 minutes ago
- Yahoo
WNBA Fans In Disbelief Over Slow-Mo Video Of Caitlin Clark Pass
WNBA Fans In Disbelief Over Slow-Mo Video Of Caitlin Clark Pass originally appeared on Athlon Sports. Caitlin Clark was sensational in her first game back from a quad injury, providing the Indiana Fever with not only her long-range shooting but also her much-needed playmaking. Advertisement The WNBA All-Star finished the game with 32 points, eight rebounds and nine assists to lead the Fever to the 102-88 win. Her seven 3-pointers also allowed Indiana to achieve a franchise record of 17 triples made in the game. The Liberty simply had no answer for Clark, even with Sabrina Ionescu and Breanna Stewart combining for 58 points. While Clark's 3-point shooting — particularly her step-back triple over Breanna Stewart in the second quarter — drew plenty of attention, her playmaking during the contest was equally impressive. In fact, early in the first quarter, she already delivered the best dime of the game when she threw a pass to Aliyah Boston from three-quarters of the basketball court. Advertisement The pass resulted in an easy layup for Boston, and the Fever themselves couldn't help but give the play a slow-motion treatment for fans to enjoy. "CAITLIN CLARK IS SO BACK," a hyped supporter said of the pass. Another poster echoed a similar sentiment, noting, "Yea… CC is back!" "SPEECHLESS!!! THATS HOW YOU MAKE A COME BACK," a fan shared. A commenter remarked, "Caitlin's court vision is absolutely incredible! Unmatched! "Great Look!" a follower added. A sixth social media user further stated, "As it should be ..that was perfection on a pass." Indiana Fever guard Caitlin Clark (22). Grace Smith/IndyStar-USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images Aside from her brilliant performance, Clark also made history in the game. Not only did she become the fourth-fastest player to reach 850 career points, but she also surpassed Candace Parker for the most 30-5-5 games in a player's first two seasons with three. Advertisement Related: LeBron James Comments Two Words on Caitlin Clark's Post This story was originally reported by Athlon Sports on Jun 15, 2025, where it first appeared.
Yahoo
21 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Bills Thrilled To Have Disgruntled James Cook in Attendance for Minicamp
Bills Thrilled To Have Disgruntled James Cook in Attendance for Minicamp originally appeared on Athlon Sports. Buffalo Bills running back James Cook had no reason to attend mandatory workouts this offseason. ... outside of avoiding fines, as he noted this week with a smile. He has been pushing hard for a new contract with the team and hasn't been pleased with the direction the conversations have taken. Advertisement He showed up anyway. Again, Cook may have commented on the decision to attend mandatory minicamp as a player avoiding fines, but the fact that he showed up to any offseason work is helpful. And it sends a message of positivity. The fact that Cook is committed enough and comfortable enough to show up suggests maybe he is willing to play ball with Buffalo. "Our interactions with Jimbo have been good the whole time throughout," Beane shared. "Jimbo, he's a pro, he's a competitive dude. He loves to win. "Of course, he wants to take care of himself. Everyone does, and we love to see that …It's good to see him. He looks good out there. You can tell he's been working." Advertisement Cook, who has talked of wanting a $15 million APY salary, clearly went out of his way to extend an olive branch to Buffalo. Now it is the Bills' turn to try and do right by their star running back and give him a contract he is worth. Until that happens, this conundrum in Western New York might worsen. ... but it'll help a great deal if Cook continues to show up for practices. Related: Bills' Brandon Beane Tight-Lipped On James Cook Contract Status Related: Bills' Josh Allen Reveals Biggest Life Accomplishment This story was originally reported by Athlon Sports on Jun 13, 2025, where it first appeared.
