As the Red Wings season comes to a close, we need to reflect on what has been a very successful season and a major building block in their rebuild. They ended the season with a record of 41-31-9 and were 5th in the Atlantic Division. The Red Wings finished the season strong by getting 7 out of the last 8 possible points but ultimately fell short because of a regulation win tiebreaker to the Washington Capitals.
Right now the Red Wings are preparing for the NHL Draft and Free Agency. The NHL Draft is on June 28th. The Red Wings have all of their picks this year and currently have the 15th overall pick in this year’s draft. With this pick, they need to go after a player who is very skilled and can score them lots of goals and play top minutes. I believe the Red Wings should pick Cole Eiserman with the 15th selection. He is a very skilled skater that has an NHL-level shot. He is committed to play at Boston University next year.
Right after the draft is the start of NHL Free Agency on July 1st. The Red Wing’s biggest problem this season was defense, so I expect the Red Wings to improve their team on the defensive side of the game. The first priority in their offseason will be to re-sign Lucas Raymond and Moritz Seider. These two players were a huge part of the team this year as Raymond led the team in points and Seider led the team in blocked shots.
Another thing they need to focus on is re-signing Patrick Kane. He just came off hip surgery and signed a 1-year contract in the middle of the season. While he was with the Red Wings he had 47 points in 50 games.
A couple of the major areas that Detroit needs to improve in the offseason are forward depth, defense, and goaltending.
With forward depth, they have a couple of free agents that the Red Wings could re-sign, but also we have prospects that could make the next step to the NHL. I think that the Red Wings should resign David Perron, who is a veteran presence who can play on their third line.
With defense, they have 5 defensemen that will be able to play next year, and they have 1 prospect that could make the team out of training camp. They have Jeff Petry and Justin Holl signed, but they proved to be a defensive liability last season. What the Red Wings need to do is sign a top 4 defenseman who can be paired with Simon Edvinsson.
In the goaltending aspect, they have Alex Lyon and Ville Husso signed for the next season. Alex Lyon proved to be good at times and bad at times. Ville Husso is very injury-prone and was injured for most of the season. I think the Red Wings should keep Alex Lyon and trade Ville Husso to get another goalie that can be paired with Lyon.
