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5 players the Red Wings shouldn’t bring back next season

The Detroit Red Wings have been going through a long rebuild since Steve Yzerman returned to the organization, so now it’s time to take the next step.

By Todd Matthews

Carolina Hurricanes v Detroit Red Wings
Carolina Hurricanes v Detroit Red Wings / Gregory Shamus/GettyImages
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The Red Wings need an upgrade over James Reimer

It wasn’t tough to have a high opinion of James Reimer, as the 36-year-old wasn’t performing that badly during his previous stop in San Jose. Over the past two seasons, the Sharks goaltending has been as poor as the rest of the team, but Reimer still managed three shutouts despite the 0.898 save percentage and 3.48 GAA last year. 

But with a better team in Detroit, you would think Reimer would have resembled the player he was in 2021-22 when he had a 2.90 GAA and a 0.911 save percentage. Reimer also had a 0.652 quality starts percentage as the top guy in the net for a franchise that had seen better days. 

Despite above-average numbers this season - 0.907 save percentage and a 2.98 GAA, you can attribute them to Reimer’s most recent performances. Throughout most of the season, inconsistency has been the best way to describe the aging netminder, as 10 of his 22 appearances were in the 0.889 save percentage range or worse.

Per QuantHockey, he struggled to just a 3.09 GAA before his three wins between March 16th and March 21st. Reimer may be the “hot hand” in the net right now, and hopefully, he keeps that pace up. But he’s been way too inconsistent to keep around the Motor City for another season. 

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