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Red Wings: Who is Detroit’s “Core” Players (Introduction)

By John Manzo

BUFFALO, NY - FEBRUARY 11: Darren Helm #43 of the Detroit Red Wings celebrates his goal with Anthony Mantha #39 during the first period against the Buffalo Sabres at KeyBank Center on February 11, 2020 in Buffalo, New York. (Photo by Timothy T Ludwig/Getty Images)
BUFFALO, NY - FEBRUARY 11: Darren Helm #43 of the Detroit Red Wings celebrates his goal with Anthony Mantha #39 during the first period against the Buffalo Sabres at KeyBank Center on February 11, 2020 in Buffalo, New York. (Photo by Timothy T Ludwig/Getty Images) /
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The Detroit Red Wings season won’t result in a playoff appearance, but who will be around if/when they do make it? Us here at the Octopus Thrower will break it down over the course of the next few weeks.

It’s onto the future.

Not that this wasn’t the case at the beginning of the season for the Detroit Red Wings, but with the NHL trade deadline coming and going, the focus further zeros in on what the future holds for this team.

General manager Steve Yzerman has “The Yzerplan” in action, but some of the hardest decisions he’ll have to make are weighing who to pay and who not to pay as he picks and chooses carefully where to spend his cap space.

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Closer to the end of the season we’ll likely get into who will return to the team and who shouldn’t. This will be based on short-term perspective. Is Valtteri Filppula someone who will be on the roster is 3-4 years? No. Will he be on the team next season to fill a gap as the prospects continue to grow? Maybe.

In the coming weeks though, us here at Octopus Thrower want to look deeper at who we think the “core” nucleus of players are. Who are going to be the guys on the roster if (hopefully when) this team is successful again?

Yzerman has been an active general manager since taking over for Ken Holland in April 2019. He’s made deals for guys like Adam Erne, Brendan Perlini, Robby Fabbri, etc., signed guys like Filppula to short-term deals during free agency and unloaded valuable (to some degree) assets such as Mike Green and Andreas Athanasiou for draft picks.

Following the trade deadline in February, Yzerman made it clear he would be frugal with spending unless that player was a larger part of the core. Does that mean each of these guys will get upward of $6-8M per year? No, but it does beg the question, who does Yzerman value and who’s sticking around?

We’ll tell you what we think.

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