Should the Detroit Red Wings offer Andreas Athanasiou an extension now?

Before the start of the 2018/19 season, the Detroit Red Wings re-signed restricted free agent Andreas Athanasiou to a two-year deal.  After a career year, should the team try and extend him this summer or let the contract play out?

If you are the Detroit Red Wings, do you consider signing Andreas Athanasiou to a long-term contract extension this summer or wait until next and extend an abundance of young forwards at the same time?  Anthony Mantha, Tyler Bertuzzi, Taro Hirose, Evgeny Svechnikov along with Athanasiou all become restricted free agents once again next summer.

Andreas Athanasiou turns 25-years-old this summer and will remain a restricted free agent next summer for the final time in his career before he is eligible to become a (UFA) unrestricted free agent.  Next summer, unless he is offered a lucrative long-term deal, he likely will only sign a one-year deal betting on himself and gauging his value with potentially testing the waters across the league for the first time in his career as a UFA.  For a player to become a UFA, said player needs to be finished their Entry-Level deal and be at least 27-years-old or have played in the league a minimum of seven seasons.

That being said the Detroit Red Wings don’t necessarily need to rush to give Andreas Athanasiou an extension now, but it could become a gamble.  When I say a gamble, I mean he could elevate his stock further if he’s able to take another significant step forward next season as he did this year. It was a breakout season for the speedy forward who scored 30 goals for the first time in his career, in fact, he’d never scored 20 before this season.

He and Dylan Larkin paced the Detroit Red Wings offense for the majority of the season along with help from Tyler Bertuzzi and Anthony Mantha.  The core-four young players all seemingly elevated their game this season understanding with Henrik Zetterberg forced to retire and trading veteran winger Gustav Nyquist the franchise is transitioning into a much younger team, in turn, leaning on them for years to come.

Next summer will be the final time Andreas Athanasiou will be an RFA so that the team can sign him to a long-term deal then but what if he scores 40 goals next season?  The flip side of the coin, of course, is he could merely score 15 goals next season and extending him now would be a colossal mistake.  That’s why it’s a gamble.

I’m usually not a big fan of long-term deals especially the one’s general manager Ken Holland has signed players to in the past, but I would not contest a five-year extension averaging 5 million per season for Athanasiou today.

I don’t believe Athanasiou will fade away as the likes of Justin Abdelkader; he’s about to enter the prime years of his career so the Wings should try and get the best deal possible with their young thoroughbred.  His contract I suggested would essentially be a six-year deal worth 28 million because it would merely be an extension to his current deal now rather than waiting until this time next season.