Aren’t there some bigger name UFAs next year?
The “next years UFA class” always looks better, until those players are traded or extended right before FA starts. Happens every year and people are always shocked.
The drafting has been bad.
Yes seider and raymond. Home runs,
And TBD on cosa and augustine,
But 2019 round 2. D - Tuomisto
Has yet to see NHL time after being in GR for 3 years.
Next 4! defensemen taken. All have seen 50-100 games.
2020 round 2 - d- wallinder. Again 0 ice time.
3 of the next 5 D - have seen 60-100 games
That and all the FWDs steve has taken in the draft are 2 way defensive minded forwards.
No true puck handlers, no goal scorers,
How do you expect to score?
Yzerman’s drafting has been mostly fine. He just hasn’t been able to supplement the roster with good talent outside of Cat (who wanted to come here specficially) and Kane (who wanted to come here to come here specifically to play with Cat). Pretty much every other FA signing/trade has been pretty mediocre at best. Faulk looked good in his limited time here, but we gave up A LOT for him.
I’m not concerned about the young talent. I’m concerned that we can’t add NHL ready talent to the roster that makes the team competitive. Filling your team with Copps, Comphers, JVRs, Appletons, etc is a quick way to make your team hot garbage. Not only do they suck, but they aren’t competitive. To compound on this, when you have guys like Marco Kasper playing most of the season with hot garbage bottom-6 players, it hinders development. You can look at someone like Soderblom (while early, the results look promising for the Pens), who was stuck with our hot garbage bottom 6 and now looks like a real NHL player. Tarasenko? Same thing. The bottom 6 is hot garbage and everyone here looks bad. Is it a system thing? Is it the fact guys like Compher and Ras bring literally everyone around them down with their poor center play? Until the Wings can figure out the bottom 6 issue, they’re cooked.
They need to get out of Comphers contract at the very least. Ideally Copp as well. Get Ras the hell out of here. Quit signing these losers and guys like Hamonic, Gustaffson, Holl, etc. Throw the kids in and see what happens. It’s so frustrating seeing these mediocre losers at the bottom of the end of this roster with no drive, fire, ability…whatever it is and see the same damn result every single year. Gut the vets, only sign good players, and fill the roster with AHL kids if you have to because good players don’t want to come here. At least that will be more exciting that the garbage we’ve been subjected to over the last few years.
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Call them all up next season.
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Should have been 2+ seasons ago.
As i said. Redwings draft class past the first round in 2019 and 2020 are virtually the ONLY prospects that haven’t been called up. While everyone else in that class is seeing full seasons.
How good can these guys really be if the wings keep having to sign guys like JVR and Appleton, trading for perron etc,
Again the prospects are good but there all the same. Mid 6 2 way forwards. Or decent 2/3 pair defenders
The wings cant stay in the offensive zone. Thats an offensive problem.
I dont see any of steves draft picks helping in that aspect.
Either trade some of these prospects or actually spend money on a GOOD FA.
Good FA have to want to sign here and that is like 99% of the problem lmao
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Then you have to trade.
Cant just do the same thing for 5 years in a row and expect a different result.
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I’m not saying I disagree with you.
But it’s also not a “just go down to the FA or trade store and proceed to checkout” kind of situation either. Need two willing parties. Like I said, I’d be fine - if we couldn’t make FA or trades happen - to just see the kids come up early. I’m tired of Copps, Comphers, and Perrons. (Down with the CCP? 
)
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And every report i ever see of why the wings are unable to make a deal “steve is too hard to work with”
So either steve needs to get off his high horse or GTFO
Steve should take a major run at Robertson. Pay him whatever he wants - I think Dallas is gonna have trouble giving him what he wants. I’d buy out Compher and bring up the kids. The 4th line sucks, but you can’t buy out everyone - just give them 8 minutes a night. I’d trade Ras for a bag of chips if someone would take him.
See what you actually have with Kasper and give him solid linemates instead of playing him 12 minutes a night with Appleton and Shine
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Kane as a the 3rd/ 4th best wing on the team is still a major problem
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It’s a problem that the teams identity is that they are soft. We need some big uglies.
Robertson is an RFA tho.
Your essentially trading 3-4 first round picks for him
And thats how you improve the bottom 6. ADD TOP 6 GUYS! Pushing the current mid6 to the bottom 6.
$8.5-9m left in cap space. Perfect imo.
Maybe. The Stars are going to have to get very creative to keep him if he wants the $12m+ that is being reported. I could see a team swoop and trading DAL for his rights for different/similar, compensation.
Also, who cares? Didn’t you just say the the problem is the Wings drafting is poor and that the Wings issue is no one can score? Now we’re against trading lots of crap assets for a guy who has roughly 200 goals in the last 5 seasons and is only 26? For reference, Cat has 175 goals the last 5 seasons and has played slightly more games (Cat just doesn’t miss a single game ever in the last 5 years)
If we’re paying 1st round picks for Faulk, we can certainly give them up for Robertson.
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If you think you’re paying 1.850m for both Ed and Cossa next year…lol.
More like 7-8.5m for Simon and 2-3m for Cossa.
And imo, any bottom 6 that has all 3 of Copp, Compher, and Ras is doomed. You have to shed at least one of these guys, possibly 2. They are black holes. I mean, ffs, Ras had 1 single point since the calendar flipped to 2026.
Either way, we’re in agreement. The Wings need more scoring overall. It’ll be interesting to see what happens. If Steve decides to “run it back” with these same loser vets again next year, it’s going to be a long season.
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Cosa and Edvison are RFAs.
Cosa i high doubt gets a big offer sheet if any
$2-3m tops.
Yea Edvinsson likely to set the market $8-10
Then Kane for 2-3m
Still leaves the wings with ~$15 to spend in FA.
Copp compher and rass are decent bottom 6
The problem has been they are always forced to play top 6 because of injuries or the kids arnt good. (Kasper, finnie, ext)
Copp and compher had the 5 & 6th most ice time. For FWDs
Put them in bottom 6. Yea that will help.
These guys are literally the reason the Wings suck. If you have these guys at the core of your bottom six, the Wings will again have issues getting production from their bottom six. The issue is these guys suck, and as you indicated, they are playing a lot. They both make over $5m a year and had 43 and 28 points. Copp is fine as a bottom 6 guy…if he wasn’t making $5 a year. Next year will be his last, so I’m fine with burying him down there at letting him rid off into the sunset. I’d much rather see him on line 4, so you can bring Danielson up and give him meaningful minutes.
Compher is egregiously bad. 28 points in 82 games while also being -13 while 5th in ice time for forwards is absurd. He needs to be bought out. You can’t keep his $5m ass around for the next two years and expect us to be competitive. He’s also the “It is what it is guy.” He ■■■■■■■ sucks all around.
Ras is garbage. 14 points all season. 1 single point after December 31st, 2025. It’s pathetic. One. Single. Point. These guys need to be off the roster yesterday. These are the “just jerseys out there” guys that Todd talked about earlier in the year. They suck, and with JT/Ras, they literally bring nothing to the table. No production. No leadership. No hypothetical ceiling to reach - they’re already maxed out. Nothing. Giving Kasper Compher’s minutes is a no brainer, so you can see what you can really get out of him. And for the love of god, play him with some actual talent. Not JVR and Appleton. Let’s see what Copp’s production looks like playing 13 minutes a night with those types of guys and not Cat/Kane - it wouldn’t be pretty. At least Kasper led the team in hits and is a menace on the forecheck. Same with Finnie.
Stick Ras and Copp on line 4 with Appleton and just have a line that is a black hole next season. Worry about improving your Top 9. That’s how I’d approch it. Having all 3 of these losers split up and making up 50% of your bottom 6 means you again have zero production from your bottom 6.
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Is there anybody in the upcoming free agency that can really make a huge difference for us? Someone that can instantly make us a playoff contender?
Not really. There’s some decent guys, but they rarely end up hitting the market and even if they do, they sure as hell don’t want to come here.
Robertson is the best guy available, but he’s an RFA, so it’s unlikely he’ll even be an option. Same with Bedard, Gauthier, Zegras, Dorofeyev - all RFAs. High unlikely.
As far as UFAs go, there’s a couple guys. But how much do you want to overpay for a 30 year old Alex Tuch if he’s even interested in coming here?
Your options for scoring forwards, realistically who are equal to or better than what we had last year:
Tuch
Ovechkin
Mantha
Malkin
Coyle
Kane
Zucarello
McCann
Tarasenko
A few of these guys won’t even hit FA. Most of them are old. A few of them we’ve already had. Most of them won’t want to come here unless we overpay for them drastically. This is why we end up for overpaid Copps and Comphers.
There’s no savior out there, really. Some pieces you might be able to add, but they’re supplemental, unless you take a swing at an RFA that a team can’t match and you have to pay compensation for. Like DBend alluded to above, the cost at a 12m+ RFA contract for someone like Robertson would likely be 4-5 future first rounders. Personally, if you want a game-changer on your team today, this is that way I’d do it. A Jason Robertson fits your timeline with Raymond, Cat, Seider, Ed. 1st round picks for the next 4-5 years aren’t likely to see the NHL for the 3-7 years at the earliest. And they’re likely to be mid round picks anyways since the Wings have crawled out of the gutter and into mediocrity.
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