Do the Red Wings Have the Roster to Make it Back to the Playoffs?

The maximum salary cap for a team for the 2024-25 season has risen to $88 million, while the salary floor is $65 million. At the time of this writing, the Detroit Red Wings have approximately $17.6 million in salary cap space. What do the Red Wings still need to accomplish regarding their roster for the 2024-25 NHL season? At some point, the “Yzerplan” needs to lead to a Stanley Cup playoff berth. With the number of players that have left the Red Wings in free agency, this is still in question.

I have previously written that the Red Wings roster going into the 2024-25 NHL season would look different. The team most recently avoided going to arbitration with center Joe Veleno by signing him to a two-year contract extension. At only 23 years old, Veleno is a young Red Wing whose scoring has progressed every season that he has played for the team. Veleno scored 12 goals and added 16 assists in 80 games played during the 2023-24 Red Wings’ season.

Patrick Kane was also signed to a one-year contract worth $4 million. Kane had a bounce-back season after undergoing hip resurfacing surgery on June 1^st, 2023. The 35-year-old scored 20 goals and added 27 assists in 50 games played for the Red Wings during the 2023-24 season. These 20 goals were the fourth most on the Red Wings during this season. Kane being on the Red Wings in the first place was due to his relationship with Alex DeBrincat. DeBrincat scored 27 goals and added 40 assists for the Red Wings during the 2023-24 season, playing in all 82 games.

If not for a scoring drought toward the end of the season by DeBrincat, the Red Wings most likely make the Stanley Cup playoffs. This is the underlying issue with the Red Wings’ roster recently. They are harder to play against every night, with a focus on playing a 200-foot game, but the high-end scoring talent has been lacking. The Red Wings scored 278 goals during the 2023-24 season, which was the ninth most in the league.

Players such as DeBrincat, Lucas Raymond and Jonatan Berggren. Berggren is part of the Red Wings’ top ranked prospect system who may make it to the NHL sooner rather than later. The Red Wings recently extended the 23-year-old from Uppsala, Sweden, as well as others, a qualifying offer. Berggren’s knack for scoring at the AHL level could be a key to the Red Wings making it back to the Stanley Cup playoffs, provided the two sides are able to come together on a contract agreement.

This is not the only player that will play for the Red Wings during the 2024-25 season that was signed to add scoring punch. Vladimir Tarasenko was signed to a two-year contract with an average annual value of $4.75 million. At 32-years-old Tarasenko’s scoring has fallen off, scoring 23 goals, and adding 32 assists in 76 games played during the 2023-24 season. Tarasenko was part of the Florida Panthers team that won the 2023-24 Stanley Cup.

“I liked the way the team played last year,” Tarasenko said during an introductory Zoom call. “I decided with the family this the best decision for us moving forward. We are really excited about it. It’s a new chapter for us. We can’t wait to get to Detroit, get settled, and start Training Camp.” The Red Wings will start their training camp on Monday, September 25^th. This will be the time when the Red Wings’ coaching staff will make decisions on filling out the rest of the team’s roster.

The Red Wings recently extended both defenseman Moritz Seider and forward Raymond qualifying offers. These two will be cornerstones of the Red Wings franchise moving forward, provided they sign contract extensions. Both players have said that they want to remain Red Wings, with Seider adding that he and fellow young defenseman Simon Edvinsson would be a “pretty cool pair for Red Wings fans.” At this point in his development, Edvinsson will surely be part of the Red Wings full-time.