The Detroit Red Wings spent a lot of the offseason with Dylan Larkin and the GM situation at the center of everything, but there’s another contract issue sitting right there in plain sight: Alex DeBrincat.
DeBrincat is in the final season of his current deal and wants a new one, specifically another contract from Detroit. The Red Wings would be happy to make that happen. The snag is obvious: there’s nobody in place to do the negotiating.
If Detroit had a GM already, there’s a strong chance DeBrincat and Simon Edvinsson would both be taken care of, and the Larkin situation would have a resolution, too. Instead, none of that comes with any certainty, which means the next GM is going to have to move quickly on a DeBrincat extension.
That urgency doesn’t necessarily mean an eight-year commitment. That doesn’t sound like the direction here. What Detroit needs most is clarity, and it needs it after a summer that has already been messy enough.
The case for keeping DeBrincat is pretty simple: the Red Wings need him, and they need him badly. His 41 goals and 85 points last season were the best numbers of his career, and they backed up everything people already knew about his game.
There’s even a case that he can still push higher. In the right setup, DeBrincat could get close to 50 goals and 100 points. Nothing in his track record says that ceiling is out of reach.
And replacing him would be a nightmare. The cost to find that kind of production through a trade or in free agency would be massive, and there isn’t anyone already on the roster who can fill that hole anytime soon.
Michael Brandsegg-Nygard might get there someday. Marco Kasper might turn into an 80-point player down the road. But neither is going to replace DeBrincat this season, and that’s the problem.
The truth is that Detroit wants DeBrincat to stay, and DeBrincat wants to stay in Detroit. He’s willing to make it work, so this should be one of the easier decisions on the board.
A deal in the neighborhood of four years and $40 million would make sense, even if DeBrincat would likely be looking for more than that. Still, the Red Wings may not have many alternatives.
By the time he would hit unrestricted free agency again, the young players could be ready to take bigger roles. That makes this more than just a contract question - it’s an investment in the team’s present.
And if management doesn’t believe this group can win now, then the alternative is obvious: trade DeBrincat while his value is still enormous.
In Other News...
Red Wings Next GM Walks Into An Immediate Contract Crisis
The next general manager walking into the Red Wings job is not getting much of a runway. Before there is even time to settle into the office, there is a pile of contract business waiting, starting with defenseman Simon Edvinsson and the need to sort out his next deal while the organization also takes stock of its current hockey operations structure and staff. Add in the broader pressure of keeping the roster moving in the right direction, and the first stretch on the job already looks like a test of timing as much as judgment.
Alex DeBrincats extension situation adds another layer of urgency, because a stalled negotiation around a top winger is the kind of issue that can shape how the rest of the roster is handled. There is also the matter of Dylan Larkin, whose future has become part of the conversation as well, making the incoming GMs first months less about long-term planning in the abstract and more about sorting through a series of decisions that could define the franchises direction quickly. [Read more 🡒]
Red Wings Remember A Former First Rounder For Far More Than Hockey
Brent Peterson was remembered this week as much for what he meant away from the ice as for his place in Red Wings history. Detroit drafted him in the first round in 1978, and he went on to play parts of four seasons with the club before continuing his NHL career with the Sabres, Canucks and Whalers, building the kind of steady hockey resume that kept him around the game for years.
Peterson later moved into coaching and was working as an assistant with the Predators when his life took a different turn after a Parkinsons diagnosis. He spent the rest of it pushing to help others facing the same disease, and the foundation he launched with his wife became a major part of that effort, a reminder that some of the most lasting legacies in sports have little to do with goals, assists or draft position. [Read more 🡒]
Red Wings Just Turned Dylan Larkin Into An Offseason Question
The Red Wings made a notable change to the heart of their leadership structure this week by moving Dylan Larkin out of the captaincy, a decision that lands squarely in the middle of an already unsettled offseason. For a franchise that has leaned on Larkin as the face of the room and the standard-bearer on the ice, the announcement adds another layer to a summer defined by transition and uncertainty.
Larkin said he will be at training camp and acknowledged recent conversations with team leadership, but he did not directly address the captaincy switch. The bigger question now is where this goes from here, because the organization has made clear that any further discussion about his future will wait until a new hockey operations leader and general manager are in place, leaving a key piece of Detroits identity hanging as the next front-office regime takes shape. [Read more 🡒]