What can the Detroit Red Wings do with Joe Veleno?

Hello, Detroit Red Wings fans. Grab a beer (or ginger ale) and take a seat around the fire while I tell you a tale as old as time. A Detroit Red Wings prospect drafted in the first round of the 2018 NHL Entry Draft who didn't reach his full potential.

Yes, Joe Veleno was drafted the same year as Filip Zadina and yes, both have had roughly the same career trajectory. The difference is that Veleno is still in the NHL and Zadina is currently playing in Switzerland.

In his career, Veleno has scored 30 goals and 35 assists in 239 Career NHL games, which isn't exactly what was planned for him, but his tools have allowed him to carve out a fairly stable NHL career. Veleno is a bottom-six centerman who can moonlight in the top six if need be.

The problem lies in the amount of prospects the Detroit Red Wings have. While Marco Kasper made his way onto the Detroit Red Wings roster this season, he's not the only one who's looking to make the jump. Unfortunately for Veleno, he's a prime target to get moved for a prospect who's banging on the door to make The Show. Prospects like Carter Mazur, Nate Danielson, Amadeus Lombardi, Emmitt Finnie, and now, once again, Elmer Soderblom are rising. This fact, mixed with Veleno's lack of consistent production, is one of the most noticeable sore thumbs on the team. It makes his spot in the lineup seemingly the easiest place to make a change.

To keep or more Veleno? That is the question for the Detroit Red Wings.

Veleno is an interesting case. He has all the skills to be a legit bottom-six center who scores 15 goals a season. He is prone to having streaks where he'll score three to four goals in six or seven games and then go 10 to 15 games without registering a point. He has probably the best catch-and-release shot on the team and has been a constant on the penalty kill. So it's not like he's completely out of sorts.

With his extension in the offseason, it was hoped that Veleno could step up his game to be a bit more consistent. Unfortunately, even with the new coach and an extended stint on the top line with Dylan Larkin and Lucas Raymond, all he was able to do was provide more speed to the line, and that was about it. Since the handful of games on the top line, Kasper has taken over and is proving he belongs in that role. So the question is now, what do you do with Veleno?

Moving Veleno seems to be the popular opinion around the Red Wings fanbase as of late. With the rumors of a potential trade between the Detroit Red Wings and Buffalo Sabres, Veleno has been thrown around as a name in a potential package deal. This isn't just with the Buffalo Sabres, either. Veleno has been included in trade packages across the league with Detroit Red Wings fans ranging anywhere from Anaheim to New York, to Vancouver, to St. Louis. The point is that Detroit Red Wings fans seem to be getting tired of Veleno taking up a spot that could be used for a player like Mazur or Danielson, as Veleno is not producing as he could.

The unpopular option is that you can always keep him. Despite his lack of consistency, he is still a solid fourth-line center who can moonlight in the top six in a pinch and not slow them down. His work on the penalty kill also makes him a solid choice to keep on the team. Though most of the forward prospects the team has waiting in the wings are all two-way forwards, so he may not be able to survive off of just being on the penalty kill. Still, he brings some value in intermittent depth scoring as well as his defensive abilities.

I feel the team should keep Veleno on as their fourth-line center. This may come as a shock to some of you, but it's true. Yes, he's wildly inconsistent. However, he's effective in a limited role as a fourth-line center. Normally, a fourth-line center is only expected to score at a 15 to 20-point pace on any given season. Another reason is where other prospects could slot into the lineup, and after Todd Mclellan took over as the new bench boss, I'm starting to learn that Kasper may be better suited to play on the wing. So, if it were up to me, I would keep Veleno as the fourth-line center. This way, Kasper remains on the wing and hope Danielson can take the second-line center spot, and if the fates align, Lombardi becomes your third-line center.