Anyone who casually played armchair GM with the Detroit Red Wings' roster on sites like Puckpedia or Capwages knew the organization would eventually reach this point. However, those same people probably didn't expect that this scenario would realize itself before the end of the first month of the season.
When former general manager Steve Yzerman extended defensemen Ben Chiarot and Jacob Bernard-Docker over the course of last season, it seemingly cemented that those two would have a place on Detroit's blue line this season with Moritz Seider, Albert Johansson and Axel Sandin-Pellikka all under contract to join them. That didn't include Simon Edvinsson who was not - and still is not - signed for this season, and it also did not include Justin Faulk, whom Yzerman acquired at last season's trade deadline.
So anyone that might have looked at the Red Wings' roster back in mid-July around the time that Yzerman was dismissed as the team's GM would have seen that the team's blue line seemed pretty rigid. Assuming Edvinsson had a contract by the time the season started, the Red Wings would have seven defensemen on their roster, depending on how they handled Sandin-Pellikka after he finished last season in the AHL.
It might have surprised that person back then if you told them that, as of October 18, Bernard-Docker was reassigned to the AHL's Grand Rapids Griffins after passing through waivers. What might surprise them even more is that waiving Bernard-Docker is only the first in a series of moves the Red Wings' front office will have to make to get their roster tidied up after a summer of indecision.
What to do with an overcrowded blue line
The seven aforementioned defensemen would have been manageable if not for two things: the first being William Wallinder's waiver status, and the second being the emergence of Anton Johansson. Then Detroit threw a third and fourth thing into the mix by claiming Andreas Englund off waivers from the Calgary Flames and heading into the season without signing Edvinsson to a new deal. The Red Wings, effectively, started the season with nine defensemen on their roster.
And that's without accounting for Simon Edvinsson.
For those of you that aren't privy to usual NHL roster construction, the usual amount of defenders on an NHL roster is typically seven. Sometimes teams will go with eight. Nine is usually only possible if the forward group is dealing with injuries; ten would be completely unheard of.
Circling back to Wallinder, it probably should have been assumed heading into this season that the 24-year-old would be part of the mix early on. Starting this season, he is no longer exempt from passing through waivers, meaning that any other team could claim him for free if the Red Wings decided to assign him to the AHL. Considering Wallinder was drafted 32nd overall back in 2020 and has three complete AHL seasons under his belt, he would have had to shoot himself in the foot to not at least get a look in Detroit this season.
Through his first four games with the Red Wings, the front office probably isn't in a rush to move on from Wallinder. He has shown good vision with the puck on his stick as well as solid hockey IQ overall. If nothing else, he could be a serviceable option on the team's bottom pairing, but it's fair to wonder how he could compliment any of Detroit's right-handed defenders heading into the future.
One of those right-handed defensemen is Anton Johansson, Detroit's rookie defenseman that emerged out of training camp and preseason to claim a spot on the Red Wings' roster. Johansson plays a more eventful game than Wallinder does, meaning he's more noticeable than his fellow rookie, and he has been one of few exciting developments for the Red Wings this season because of it.
"You look at Anton Johansson...this is new to him," head coach Todd McLellan said in conversation with Daniella Bruce and Logan Reever. "But he has the courage to put himself out there every night. He's willing to make a mistake, and we're willing to accept that mistake, but he has the courage to do it. He's not playing apprehensive at this point. We'll see where it all goes."
As of this point in the season, both Anton and Albert Johansson, Seider, Chiarot and Faulk have played in all eight of the Red Wings' games this season. That's three right-handed defensemen (Seider, Faulk, Anton) and two left-handed defensemen (Albert and Chiarot). It's not hard to envision how the left-handed Edvinsson would fit in should he come to terms with the Red Wings on a new contract.
"The narrative's going to be 'these guys got to play every night', but we have nine defensemen," McLellan said, unprompted, in response to a question about Wallinder's play so far. "We're going eleven and seven, when Moritz Seider plays 27 minutes a night there's not a lot of minutes for the other six, and there's still two guys...sitting out. So we're trying to keep everybody alive on the back end until we can get things sorted out.
"I'm sure that will happen soon."
The next day, Bernard-Docker was assigned to Grand Rapids.
How the forwards fit in the picture
Despite having so many defensemen on the roster, the Red Wings also have 15 forwards on their roster, at least as of this writing. This total includes J.T. Compher, Marco Kasper and Mason Appleton, all of whom are currently on injured reserve, as well as AHL call-up Sheldon Dries.
Compher is expected to rejoin the Red Wings’ lineup soon, while Kasper and Appleton are both considered week-to-week. Once Compher is activated, the Red Wings will be at the maximum 23 active players on their roster. Once Kasper and Appleton are activated, adjustments will have to be made pending other roster developments between now and then.
The biggest roster development that could go down seemingly any day now is a trade involving top-six center Dylan Larkin.
Theoretically, moving Larkin out would create an open roster spot that would help unclog their roster. However, it has widely been reported that the Red Wings’ front office prefers to receive at least one NHL-ready forward in a Larkin trade – plus the teams that he has approved a trade to would all need to send money back to Detroit to absorb his contract and stay under the salary cap.
The Red Wings could acquire someone in a Larkin deal to make the money work and then immediately send them elsewhere for additional assets, but it’s more likely that they will acquire someone that they intend to keep. For example, Larkin has most commonly been linked to the Minnesota Wild, and most mock trades involve Minnesota sending a player like Ryan Hartman for monetary reasons as well as Danila Yurov to give Detroit a good, young forward in the deal.
Like Wallinder on the backend, Carter Mazur is a forward whose status is a bit precarious as the Red Wings navigate through shaping their roster. Mazur, a third-round pick in 2021, is no longer exempt from waivers. The Jackson native is another player currently on the roster that grew up a Red Wings fan; while that attribute doesn’t put points on the board, the Red Wings organization has proven that it’s an attribute they appreciate and sometimes even covet.
Between having players they would ideally like to keep as well as a player they are seemingly on the verge of trading, the Red Wings’ forward group offers doesn’t offer much in terms of an easy way out of their roster predicament. Finding a futures-based offer for Larkin the organization is comfortable with would go a long way towards solving this issue, but that is far from a slam dunk.
It begs the question: what other moves are the Red Wings considering right now?
Reshaping the roster
If Shawn Horcoff is an optimist, he might look at this logjam as a good thing for two different reasons: one being that it means the organization has an abundance of NHL talent in their system, and the other being that it provides ample opportunity for him, as the interim GM, to make his mark on the roster and show ownership and the fans what his vision for the team is.
Whether it’s the onramp to change or a road block, Horcoff’s work is cut out for him. His predecessor left him a pair of situations in Larkin and Edvinsson that could blow up the roster like a ticking time bomb. But, with that said, Yzerman also left Horcoff with enough NHL-ready young players that it feels like managing the Larkin and Edvinsson situations correctly could result in the Red Wings turning the corner of what has been a long, arduous rebuild.
It may seem like a bit of a reach, but waiving and assigning Bernard-Docker may very well have been the first step in doing just that.
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