The NHL’s salary cap will rise to $88 million for the 2024-25 season, the league announced recently. The salary floor will be $65 million. As of this writing, the Red Wings have a projected cap hit of $58.63 million, according to PuckPedia. I have written in the past that the Detroit Red Wings have two free agents, Moritz Seider and Lucas Raymond, that they need to re-sign. These two players have shown that they can be the cornerstones of the Red Wings franchise moving forward.
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The rise in the salary cap allows general manager Steve Yzerman more wiggle room when it comes to fitting these two players, among others, under the salary cap regarding their new contracts. Yzerman has now been general manager of the Red Wings for eight seasons. The “Yzerplan” has not been able to make it to the Stanley Cup playoffs, the last season being the closest to this goal. The Red Wings roster needed to be rebuilt after former general manager Ken Holland held the job to take the same job for the Edmonton Oilers.
The starting lineup on the opening game of the 2019-20 Red Wings season under former head coach Jeff Blashill included such names as Adam Erne and Christoffer Ehn. This Red Wings team finished the COVID-19-shortened 2019-20 season with a 17-49-5 record. The Red Wings drafted Raymond with the fourth pick in the first round of the 2020 NHL draft because of this season.
Seider and Raymond have been two of the more important players on the Red Wings’ roster since they were drafted. Seider won the Calder Trophy as the Rookie of the Year after being drafted sixth overall by the Red Wings in 2019. This was a shocking move by Yzerman at the time that paid dividends immediately. The next thing for Seider and Raymond to do is lead the Red Wings back to the playoffs, something that the franchise has not done in eight seasons.
Raymond did his best to drag the Red Wings to the Stanley Cup playoffs in the 2023-24 season, a goal that they fell short of on the last day of the season. In 82 games played for the Red Wings Raymond scored 31 goals and added 41 assists for a career-high 72 points. These 72 points were three more than Dylan Larkin’s 69 points in 68 games played. While the Red Wings did not make the playoffs, the mere fact that the young players on the roster performed so well in the playoff push can only be seen as a positive.
Yzerman needs to worry about the Red Wings being a “cap team” when it comes to the Seider and Raymond extensions. ‘(I’ll) kind of get a rough idea — if I can’t figure it out sooner than later — of how much money we’re going to have,’ Yzerman explained. ‘Because we’re getting close to being a cap team, and I gotta really start to think about the cap now. So, some decisions may be simply made based on what our cap situation is.’
To their credit, both Seider and Raymond have said that they want to remain in Detroit. Seider has espoused the talents of Red Wings minor-league defenseman Simon Edvinsson saying that he and Edvinsson would be “pretty cool for the Red Wings.” In the mean time Edvinsson is developing into a bigger role for the Grand Rapids Griffins. Simon played 16 games for the Red Wings during the 2023-24 season.
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