Red Wings Weekly Review: Some Business to be Settled

The Detroit Red Wings’ week was a quiet one. Other than Chase Pearson re-signing and arbitration dates set for Adam Erne and Jakub Vrana, it was an expected week of little action as the “dog days” of summer set in. Though this offseason is much shorter than what it would be in a normal season.

With a pause in activity, it’s been interesting to look back and just how far Detroit has come and in the same sentence, how much further they still have to go. The three-part series that started Friday examines how Detroit arrived to the moment of the “Yzerplan” while the next two parts look at the moves made and how it affected Detroit in the short and long term as well.

Beyond that, there’s certainly a lot of improvement the Red Wings have seen in that time and none more than what awaits them for the 2021-22 season. Led by what will be Moritz Seider’s NHL debut, Chris looked at four other signs that Detroit will see another bump in right direction. If that wasn’t enough in terms of positive progress, he also put together a piece predicting the ETAs of ten of the best Red Wings prospects.

Seider again leads the list but wouldn’t it be something if the likes of Joe Veleno, Jonatan Berggren and Lucas Raymond all find their way to the NHL roster this season? Veleno seems likely, most likely challenging for the fourth center position that appears to be Mitchell Stephens‘.

Berggren and Raymond will be adjusting to North American ice, but Berggren seems the better bet to either break through or have a cup of coffee with the big club. Why rush things when it feels like Detroit is wanting to have one final crack at a top two pick in the draft lottery in 2022?

News will slowly trickle in as we go through the coming weeks, but it’s nice to have a moment to pause and realize that the trajectory of the organization continues to be on the up and up.

Red Wings Week Ahead

With August 11th just around the corner (Wednesday), there’s that 72 hour window of time for Yzerman and Vrana’s team to hammer out a deal. At this point it seems fair to think they’re either close to something and need to just work on a few numbers here and there, or both sides are prepared to let an arbitrator rule.

It will be interesting to see if Vrana’s deal will affect anything with Adam Erne, who is looking for a raise after leading Detroit in goals this past season.

Unless Yzerman plans to make any other moves (and one can never really guess), it should be another relatively quiet week in Hockeytown.