I want to start this by saying sorry to anyone who is a Detroit Red Wings hater. This group probably includes people who are Colorado Avalanche fans, Pittsburgh Penguins fans, people who don’t like the original six teams, and/or people who don’t like good hockey. I understand that as a kid born in Minnesota I should be all in on the Wild, but when your family is all from Michigan, you don’t really get a choice. In the interest of keeping you, the readers coming back. I will be sprinkling in things about other franchises. Now that that is out of the way let’s get into this week’s edition of the “Winged Wheel Weekly”.
To catch everyone up to speed on the Red Wings who doesn’t know the 2019-2020 season was… how should I put this… A dumpster fire in a moving car with no brakes headed towards backed up New York City traffic. When Covid-19 hit and ended the season for the Wings their record was 17-49-5. That’s right with 11 games remaining in the season the Wings had still not reach 20 wins. With a season that bad I’m sure many of you are wondering how do you remain a loyal fan? I have two words for that… Steve Yzerman. The new gm is the reason Wings fan everywhere having gone totally insane yet.
The Red Wings Off-Season Has Been Exciting
The 2020 offseason has shown everyone that Steve Yzerman really may be the one who can bring the Wings back to the glory days of 1997-2008. In my opinion, Yzerman’s smartest move of the whole offseason was to buy out veteran forward Justin Abdelkader. By buying out Abdelkader’s contract Yzerman saved the Wings 2.4 million for the 20-21 season. Freeing up that money allowed for the next big part of the offseason to happen. With money to play with at the start of free agency Yzerman wasted no time. He signed veteran players Bobby Ryan, Jon Merrill, Marc Staal, and Thomas Greiss. Yzerman also added to the roster Vladislav Namestnikov and Troy Stecher. Yzerman also resigned RFA’s Tyler Bertuzzi and Anthony Mantha.
With all these moves some of you may be wondering what my opinion is on the offseason the Wings had. I couldn’t be happier with what Yzerman did. He found a way to bring in cheap veterans to teach young guns like Dylan Larkin, Mantha, and Bertuzzi how to win games in the NHL and become the new core of the Wings. I also love the new additions to the backend on defense. I think the young guys will truly benefit from watching Staal and Merrill practice every day. Goaltending is the only place I would have liked to see Yzerman get move aggressive. The free agency market for goalies was big this offseason, the Wings had a lot of cap space to work with, I would have like to see a move made for a goalie like Jacob Markstrom.
Solid NHL Draft for Detroit
All of these free agency moves came after a great draft class taken by Yzerman and his staff. Detroit’s big prize is Forward Lucas Raymond from Sweden. Raymond was taken by the Wings at 4th overall. The young gun is currently playing overseas with Frolunda HC in the SHL and in 18 games registering 11 points. The other thing to remember about this kid is he is only 18. He was compared to Mitch Marner during his draft analysis.
I would like to thank everyone who takes the time to read this first installment of, “The Winged Wheel Weekly”.
This is going to be hopefully a weekly series on new Red Wings news and my opinions of what is going on around the team. If any other Wings fans actually read this feel free to Tweet at me @DChockey97 with questions, things you would like to see me talk about, or opinions of your own!
