Toronto Maple Leafs: Did the Detroit Red Wings Get Better?

We all know the Toronto Maple Leafs got better this summer. Can the same be said for their Atlantic Division rivals?

You know the drill by now, right? Over the past few weeks, I’ve been going through each Atlantic Division team to see if they improved during the offseason.

Florida was on the docket yesterday, and the Detroit Red Wings are up next.

Additions: Tomas Vanek, Jonathan Bernier, Harri Sateri, Chris Terry

Departures: Xavier Ouellet, Tom McCollum, Jared Coreau, David Booth

Summer Recap

What the hell are the Red Wings doing?

This wasn’t intended to be read in an aghast or critical tone. I genuinely want someone to explain what exactly the game plan is for Detroit right now because I have no idea.

These aren’t your Grand Papi’s Red Wings. No sir. This version finished 27^th in the standings last season, a thrilling follow-up to their 25^th place showing from the year before.

There’s no sugar coating it. This is not a good hockey team.

When a franchise finds itself mired in consecutive bottom-5 finishes, a rebuild is generally in order. It’s the natural course of events in today’s NHL. By now, everyone knows the most crippling position in this league isn’t the basement, rather the dreaded middle. The place where mediocrity grabs hold and refuses to let go.

I struggle to think of a more punishing curse than being not quite good enough to make the playoffs and not quite bad enough to sway the lottery balls.

Think; the Minnesota Wild. I rest my case.

So, here the Red Wings sit, in an enviable position to hit the reset button and build from the ground up. A position more conducive to a rebuild than most could ever hope for.

Under the ownership of the Illich family, this franchise is blessed with the necessary financial resources to, in the same vein as the Leafs, expedite their build. Henrik Zetterberg, the lone remaining piece from their dynastic past, turns 37 mere days before the season opens. In one last act of goodwill, Zetterberg has made his intention to unabashedly flip off the CBA and ride out the final two years of his ridiculously front-loaded contract on LTIR publicly known.

The man’s tank runs perilously low, and executing this plan would unlock ample cap space for the Wings to weaponize for the future.

It’s a no-brainer.

Freshly re-signed GM, Ken Holland, even momentarily showed signs of heading down the rebuild path prior to free agency, selling off Tomas Tatar for a ludicrous package at the deadline and then turning around to select Filip Zadina and Joe Veleno with the subsequent pair of 1^st round picks.

Few teams, if any, nailed the draft’s opening round like the Red Wings did, lucking into two enticing talents who never should’ve fallen to them in the first place.

Luck, by the way, happens to be the X-factor behind successful rebuilds. The Wings got it. Now take it and run!

Only, they didn’t do that. Quite the opposite, actually.

Did Detroit let their veteran pending UFA’s walk in an effort to clear cap space that would then allow them to absorb another team’s bad contract on the condition of a prospect included as a sweetener? Nope! They extended Mike Green, who hasn’t stayed healthy for a full season since 2007, instead. And not for one, but two more years.

Did the once-great veteran, who is now clearly on his last legs, sign a team-friendly deal befitting of his current ability? Nope! Green will count for $5.375 million against the cap until 2020-21.

Did the Wings at least wait until August to sign effective yet undervalued free agents for pennies on the dollar rather than overpaying when the market opened? If your answer is anything other than nope, you’re missing the trend here.

Rather, Holland came out swinging to nab Tomas Vanek, whose post-trade headshots have singlehandedly kept Photoshop financially afloat in recent years, at a $3 million cap hit.

Vanek has played on 8 different teams in the past 6 seasons, and the Wings handed him double the salary a younger and equally productive Patrick Maroon eventually earned from St. Louis 10 days later. Does that scream rebuild to you?

It’s not all bad, though.

Detroit’s glaring need in goal was no secret, so they addressed it by locking down the criminally underrated Jonathan Bernier. Anthony Mantha is a young, productive a piece of this team’s future, and Holland bridged him for 2 years at just $3.3 million. Bridge deals almost exclusively end in combustion, but the quality of the 23-year-old’s supporting cast will undoubtedly hamper his production, and, in turn, future cap hit.

Chris Terry put together a phenomenal AHL season on the putrid Laval Rocket. By all accounts, signing him gifts Detroit’s farm system with veteran scoring depth to shepherd forward the development of their prospects.

If really you try your hardest, there are ways to spin this.

Outlook

So, did the Red Wings get better? Well, that depends.

On paper, yes, this roster is better now than it was in April. Then again, it would have been pretty difficult to downgrade from 27^th place. Their goaltending is solid, Vanek will inject offence into the PP, and they managed t exit the draft with a superb future haul.

In the bigger picture, however, there’s no way you can be happy with this offseason.

It seems that the only individuals with a stake in this team who aren’t clamouring for a rebuild are the ones who run it. Every year, Holland & Co. slap band-aids over deep organizational problems, and every year their roster puts forth a worse effort.

Zadina and Valeno signify steps in the right direction, albeit ones lost amongst the usual short-term futility which fans have become now accustomed to.

Thanks for reading!