The next general manager of the Detroit Red Wings doesn’t get a honeymoon period. The moment he walks into Little Caesar's Arena, he'll have three fires already burning on his desk. Every one of them was left there by an organization that couldn't help but trip over its own feet the entire offseason.
The Red Wings are fighting the clock with Simon Edvinsson
Simon Edvinsson has reportedly said he'll report to camp with or without a new contract. This is, of course, good for team morale. Still, the incoming GM should feel a strong sense of urgency to get a deal done.
There's a real number attached to the endless waiting. September 15 is the hard cutoff to sign a player to an eight year deal. Miss it, and a max contract for Edvinsson drops to a seven-year under the new CBA rules. That's a year of possible term gone, and likely a chunk of total dollars with it if you're the one negotiating the next deal after this. Look at what Zeev Buium just got from the Vancouver Canucks: eight years, $9.38 million AAV, and he's a 20-year-old with 76 NHL games and 26 points on his resume.
Edvinsson is 23, has shown top-pair potential and has two full NHL seasons and part of a third under his belt. If Buium's possible upside were enough to net him $9.38 million AAV before he'd really proven anything, Edvinsson's actual production should be worth at least that (and probably more). This should've been the easiest signature of the offseason. Instead, the new guy inherits a defenseman who's watched a young player at the same position cash in on a much smaller resume.
DeBrincat's extension is on hold, but carries optimism
This is the one piece of good news in all of it. Alex DeBrincat spoke at the NHL/NHLPA Player Media Tour this week and didn't mince words. "My intention is obviously to stay in Detroit."
Seven words without ambiguity. Exactly what you want to hear from a guy coming off 41 goals and 85 points to lead the Wings in 2025-26.
But wanting to stay and putting pen to paper are two different things, and DeBrincat's extension like Edvinsson’s, has stalled. So day one isn't just about signing Simon. It's two negotiations stacked on top of each other, one where the player has already made his intentions clear and one where the deadline is a lot less forgiving. I'd take that problem over a guy who's already checked out, but it's still a problem, and it's still sitting in the GM's office before he's even found the light switch.
The Larkin trade is a problem the next Red Wings GM can't really control
This is the one that should actually worry some people. Dylan Larkin's preferred destination is reportedly still Minnesota, presumably built around his Team USA relationships with Quinn Hughes, Matt Boldy and Brock Faber. There's just one issue: Hughes himself hasn't committed to his own future in Minnesota. If he walks by the deadline, the appeal of that market disappears for Larkin too.
Whoever takes over is stuck waiting on a resolution in someone else's building while still juggling his own locker room. And Larkin hasn't expanded his options, so there's no backup plan sitting on the shelf if Minnesota falls apart. Maybe a Hughes holdout grows Larkin’s list. Maybe it heals the wounds and sends him on a redemption tour. This is the one situation where time has been out for a while; no matter who is in office there, there's a stalemate. It’s all a matter of who folds first.
The elephant in the room
Somewhere underneath all three of those fires is the actual job: finalizing a lineup, evaluating a hockey ops staff he didn't hire and deciding whether Todd McClellan's system fits the personnel he's about to inherit. Outside analysis has already started calling this a long to-do list, and that's before anyone's even stepped foot in the building. That's the part of the job people think about when they picture a GM. Right now, it's third or fourth on the growing list.
Detroit hasn't made the playoffs in ten years. The next Red Wings GM doesn't get to spend his first month getting his footing. He gets a defenseman on the clock, a star winger in limbo and a captain whose exit ramp depends on decisions being made two states away.
Welcome to Detroit, sorry about the mess.
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