[Link below] Just read Max's latest, and suddenly I am less excited? I think Talbot represents a pretty big upgrade in net, even if that is only through consistency, and now the Wings have potential trade bait (as he mentions). I commented earlier that I think we could've gotten Ghost for the 3×3.2 he got in Carolina, but is Gustafsson that much of a downgrade, considering Ghost was not very good actually defending? I was a big fan of Perron, but is losing him that big a deal? Max didn't seem to keen on the Kane signing either – or am I reading that wrong?
The vibes here just don't seem to match with Max's. I don't know how much better we got, but did we actually regress? What do we think, friends?
Link: https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5609346/2024/07/01/red-wings-nhl-free-agency/
by chiefstone6
44 Comments
I actually think we had a really good day (inclusive of the Kane deal).
If young guys can make an impact like they are supposed to we will be fine
Its possible Steve DID have big plans for today, without an interview from him we wont know yet. I suspect perhaps he thought he had a shot at a Stamkos or Marchessault or someone.
That said, the positive I take away is he didnt take a swing, whiff, then try to compensate by throwing money at players who dont deserve it.
I think any sane hockey fan is looking at a lot of todays signings, especially the higher dollar and term ones, and thinking “really? For him!??”
The good news is the cap is going to go up substantially the next few seasons, and now Detroit is poised to be able to take big swings at the next few FA classes
Liked today more than I thought I would. We’re a deal for a RHD away from set imho. Necas would be primo icing on top of that.
Always have to ask on FA day, what deal do I wish we would’ve signed? Stamkos overpay amongst many others. Less is more, lots of trade targets left
Outside of the Kane deal, the Gustafsson one is the best so far.
We won by not signing any of the ridiculous deals that were handed out.
As for short term outlook we look to be about equal to where we were last year. In net we’re more consistent but we’ll need the good version of Chiarot and Petry to show up more times than the bad versions of them. We all know Yzerman is more focused on the long term though. If there’s a big improvement it’ll come from Seider and Raymond being better and Edvinsson being good in his first full year. Yzerman is waiting for those guys to really come into their own to go hard for playoffs. All of his big additions (Kane, DeBrincat) are calculated and take advantage of situations where he can get them for cheap. That’s why he’s going after Trouba when everyone in NY wants him out.
There are very few deals I look at from today and go “man I wish we did that.”
We don’t have to throw money at free agency every year to improve. We have prospects getting to the point where it would be reasonable to expect them to play significant time this year in the types of roles that we’d be signing these free agents for.
No bad signings is a win and Kane probably has the most favorable deal out of almost any contract from the last few days, still plenty of time after today to continue to fill things out.
I think Yzerman tried for Stammer but the offer from Nashville was too high
We probably offered something like 5M x 2 years.
I don’t expect to be much better next season but it looks like there may be youth movement going on and I’m all for that.
We didn’t sacrifice our future and kept it flexible on 1 and 2yr deals. I think that in it’s self is a win. Hopefully, our rookies star pushing for their spots and get playing time this year.
I think it’s possible the Wings regress – they had a high shooting percentage and weren’t great 5-on-5. They lost some offense, so it’s fair to be concerned. That said, It’s the first day of free agency and who knows what’s going to happen between now and the start of the season. They could also see improvements from within both offensively and defensively.
I will say, I don’t get his criticism of the Ghost-Gustafsson swap – suggesting the Wings should have just kept Ghost instead. Maybe it came down to Yzerman being unwilling to give term? Unless Max knows something the rest of us don’t, I’m not sure Ghost would have signed that deal to stay in Detroit. Not to mention, by the time he signed it, he might’ve realized he wasn’t going to get the AAV and term he was looking for heading into today.
Naw, today was good. I’m excited about adding Talbot and Gustafson. I’m even more excited about re-signing Kane and Fischer and not re-signing Ghost. Although I’ll miss Perron, I believe he isn’t worth his new contract. For the first time in a while, I don’t believe we took on a single bad contract on July 1st. Plus, we already had a lot of pieces to the puzzle so today we were just adding to it. I think we are moving in the right direction. It’s exhausting how some people always have to be so negative.
Throw in Trouba at 2RD and our D will be much better than last year. Forward group is not a step forward, but it got much younger. Hopefully young guys will step up to close the gap. G became better and now league average.
Overall I’m just happy we haven’t made any stupid signings, like Stamkos or Tanev
Kind of a weird one from Max. Sure we lose Ghost and Perron’s offense, but they were both defensive liabilities who didn’t skate great.
A lot of this still hinges on what this Trouba trade ends up being, if it isn’t dead. If we get Kakko in the deal, that could pay huge dividends in the end for us.
I don’t get the negativity. We brought back the two most important of our four UFA forwards in Kane and Fischer. Perron was overpaid for a forward of his age, and he is already so slow that he’s barely effective at even strength. Sprong puts up good offensive numbers, but his lack of defense is not ideal. We’ll be better off without those two.
On D, Ghost has the offensive edge over Gustafsson, but Gustafsson is better at actual defense. The only real downside there was Walman, but he’s being replaced by Ed. The top six should be at least as good overall as last season, and maybe play some better D as a group.
In goal, we don’t have a clear #1 but we have a group of goalies from which we should get acceptable results. The situation is improved over what it was.
All this and we will have quite a bit of cap space left over even after we sign Mo and Raymond.
Season hasn’t even started, there is a lot to say about players individually, but more important is how they play as a team.
We just don’t know how good or bad Detroit will be yet, the chemistry can be great and what would be on paper a shit team can be really solid.
It’s just speculation at this point.
I’m still expecting news on the trade front, I don’t think we’ve heard the last of roster changes. That said, I won’t be surprised if we take a step back this year. As this sub hates to hear, we weren’t supposed to be in the position we were this year, it was ahead of schedule. Course correction impending.
That being said, if some prospects pop off I think we could be on the cusp again. Just gotta stay healthy and fix whatever mentality leads to eating shit with Larks out.
I’d be interested in hearing from max as to which of these high term/dollar deals he wishes we signed.
I get the sentiment. While the signings today were financially good, the actual roster construction is confusing to say the least
The wings have 4 back up goalies and 9 defensemen on the roster currently.
There’s only 1 buy out slot available for this season (Abdelkader & Yamamoto have the other 2).
Very curious to see what trades may come in the future
We didn’t sign more bloated contracts to the Holls Copps and Chiarots of the world. That’s a win to me. Playoffs or not.
I feel like Max is pretty fair here. I personally don’t mind going from Gostisbehere to Gustafsson (who I think with an increased role on the PP not being behind Fox could see a slight uptick in points), but this team was out over their skis last year looking at their possession metrics and team shooting percentage and there’s not really anything we could do this offseason to bridge that gap with how many roster spots are spoken for already. We’re certainly a softer team today than we were yesterday losing Perron. We haven’t meaningfully improved an offense that struggled to generate quantity and quality chances. We haven’t meaningfully improved a defense that struggled to prevent quantity and quality chances. This isn’t a bad thing though in the long run if it does mean getting the younger players (especially on forward) some reps.
The one thing about Detroit’s young media is they have a huge hard on for certain players and completely over value them.
Walman is very popular among Red Wings twitter and Reddit but he is not good defensively. He was healthy scratched down the stretch.
Ghost is a very good offensive defenseman but is a complete liability in his own end.
Perron is a good leader, was strong on the puck, and good on the power play but not all that good defensively or 5on5.
Sprong could score but is also a complete liability defensively.
Reading the tea leaves, it’s clear why these players were not prioritized. Yzerman wants this team to improve the way they defend.
I Think we stayed dead even at worst….. but we lost Ghost to open up space fro Edvinsson and Johansson and Gustafsson is here to pick up slack if they stumble. Talbot is an upgrade,We brought Fisher and Kane back we still need to ink Mo and Lucas.
There’s also that trade rumor going around regarding Trouba. Yzerman doesn’t take many risks and this team slumped twice last season and still just missed. We’re fine. The Wings aren’t at the “Big splash on 7/1” stage yet.
People don’t realize starting the season with Edvinsson and Kane are practically signings themselves…if Albert Jo can chip in as well then that’s great, an assumed upgrade in net as well…looking good right now without really having done too much
Yzerman was the most overt and direct I’ve ever seen when several times at the end of the season he mentioned team defense. Our lacking was good defense and two way forwards that create offense from defensive smarts. You aren’t going to win our division running and gunning if you don’t have a 34, 86 or the other 2 88’s as your forwards. Let’s see the defensive first team he is putting together for this season.
It’s pretty clear at this point that yzerman’s *mainly* interested in short term deals while letting several prospects graduate. We win by not signing Stamkos, Marchessault, etc.
We need a 2nd pairing RD. And the lack of signings today make me question why Walman was traded or what the big miss was, because given the current state there was no need to ship a 2nd round pick out.
We added value without term. Gustafsson for less money and less years than Ghost? Win. Letting Perron walk regardless of price? Win. Talbot for that price and term? Win. Fischer back for 1 and cheap? Win.
Not getting into that absurd Stamkos contract or some of the other things that happened? Win.
Some times doing nothing is the biggest win.
While I don’t wish we got any of the big contract guys. Our team really didn’t get better and we spent assets to dump money.
They signed/re-signed one of the best free agents available to a very good contract. Anyone who thought they would sign anything more than depth/role players hasn’t been paying attention since Yzerman took over as gm. It’s all stop gaps while the prospects develop. I would expect next year to be the same if not even less active since there will be a lot of young talent pushing there way into the NHL.
Off the top of my head the only deals I feel we missed out on, without considering where or what the players wanted was..
Teravainen and walker.
Others like stammer would be nice but come at a big price. Seems like we need one more top 6 forward so interested to see what happens
Some of the deals today make Copps look team friendly. I’m looking at you Stephenson. I’m sad we didn’t do more, but prices were insane. Lindholm and his almost 8 a year for 7 years will not age well.
At the deadline I was upset we didn’t do more to make the playoffs. I’ve been adamant we needed to make the playoffs of July 1st would be quiet. Well here we are. Let’s see what the rookies can do. We have several open spots including 2nd line winger . Let’s go!
Defense is similar to last years, maybe even an upgrade with Edvinsson for a full year and Gustafsson as a better defender (slightly) that Gostisbehere. Right side is still a concern but IMO it was a concern last year as well. Goaltending got better with Talbot as a tandem with Lyon. Kane for a full year rather than 50 games is an upgrade.
Only concern I have is losing Perron and Sprong’s goal scoring. If we don’t sign any of the remaining free agent wingers, then the rookies will have to step up big time. But, you add in hopefully a healthy Larkin and year 4 Raymond, maybe a less snake bitten Cat. Is the team better than last year’s? Maybe, maybe not. But I don’t mind Yzerman being conservative after seeing the contracts handed out today.
I think Steve thought he had a legit chance at getting stamkos , which would’ve made this a solid day. I really like the Gustafson signing and that he didn’t overpay for any other forwards. I believe there is still a trade to make for trouba but that trade won’t help us much unless kakko is involved. Ultimately it’s up to the guys on the roster and any prospects that show they are ready. Really would’ve loved to see Matt Roy signed though.
We definitely regressed, but I think that’s fine. We had 0 rookies on the team last year minus the last month of Edvinsson. This is a rebuilding team, that wasn’t particularly in line with that.
What I don’t get is trading Walman for cap space we aren’t using. We haven’t replaced him and that’s going to hurt.
This free agency has been super meh, but that’s okay when there’s a ton of overpays and excessively long contracts. I just hope we didn’t dump Walman’s cap space and that 2nd rounder for nothing.
Sounds like a perfect article for a journalist to write after today.
If they do well this season you can say you liked some of the signings and point at this article. If they do poorly this year you can say you didn’t like some of the signings and point at this article.
Max is playing it safe.
So far this looks like the year we give the kids a “real” chance to make the team. It could all change tomorrow but as of this moment guys like Edvinsson, Johansson, Mazur, Kasper, Berggren, and Danielson can see the door open to earn a spot. Not all will but some of them will be on the big team come opening day. Edvinsson has a spot locked up and probably Johansson too unless he totally shits the sheets in the preseason.
I still think a Trouba trade could happen. Getting him and losing Holl would be a good thing.
The issue isn’t the goalie, it’s the defense in front of him. His stats look better than what we have, but he also played behind a much better defense last season. We have to hope that ours is much improved this year.
Yeah but we didn’t add anything. Lose a trash D get a trash D lose a trash goalie get two more trash goalies
Resign Kane
This team last year missed the playoffs. We need to get real players not bargain basement dudes
I can’t wait to be fucked in the lottery again next year
I’m still not sure how the Walman piece fits into what’s happened over the last 24 hours but I think it must be a “more to the story” that we may just never know.