There’s still a lot unsettled about the Detroit Red Wings’ roster for next season, but two of their young core pieces are spending the summer in a much lighter mood.
Lucas Raymond and Simon Edvinsson were recently seen at a Luke Combs concert at Ullevi Stadium in Gothenburg, Sweden, where they joined Combs on stage and shotgunned cans of Miller Lite alongside Buffalo Sabres captain Rasmus Dahlin.
For Detroit, the pairing is notable for reasons beyond the concert scene. Raymond is already into the third season of the eight-year extension he signed in 2024, while Edvinsson remains a restricted free agent. The Red Wings have kept Edvinsson’s rights by issuing a qualifying offer, though other NHL teams can still try to pry him away with an offer sheet.
Edvinsson’s future is still unresolved, but his on-ice rise has already made him a key part of Detroit’s blue line. He has become the club’s second most reliable defenseman behind Moritz Seider, and this past season he played 72 games, setting a new career high with nine goals. He also finished with 16 assists and averaged 22:21 of ice time per game.
His season was interrupted when a recurring injury resurfaced in a late-January game, leading to surgery. The recovery went well enough that he was back with the Red Wings before March arrived.
Selected sixth overall by Detroit in the opening round of the 2021 NHL Draft, Edvinsson has already shown why the organization values him so highly.
Raymond, meanwhile, had a slight step back in production, dropping from 80 points in 2024-25 to 76 points this past season. He pushed back on any suggestion that injury issues were the reason for the dip, saying there weren’t many players at that stage of the season who were fully healthy.
In Other News...
Red Wings Fans Just Got Another Reason To Doubt Larkin Pick Packages
Bill Armstrongs explanation for why Utah matched the Barrett Hayton offer sheet landed well beyond Salt Lake City, because it put a familiar NHL debate back in the spotlight: how much trust should a general manager place in draft picks when a proven center is on the table? For Red Wings fans, it is the same tension that always follows Dylan Larkin chatter. Steve Yzerman has been careful about the kind of return he would even consider, and the broader message from around the league is clear enough. Picks are useful, but they are far from sure things, especially when the player in question is already established.
The numbers only sharpen that caution. Second-round selections from 2011 to 2020 have turned into regular NHL players only about 30 to 34 percent of the time, while even late first-rounders are hardly locks. That is why teams keep treating premium centers like assets you do not replace with a stack of futures unless the offer is loaded with real certainty. For Detroit, it is another reminder that any Larkin package would have to be built around proven help, not just the promise of what might develop years down the road. [Read more 🡒]
Red Wings Offseason Is Stuck On One Massive Unresolved Situation
Dylan Larkins situation has become the kind of offseason hold-up that can shape everything else around it. The Red Wings captain remains at the center of a trade discussion with Steve Yzerman, and until there is clarity on where that goes, Detroits roster picture stays a little blurry. It is the sort of unresolved business that hangs over a teams summer, especially when the player involved is still under contract and the front office is trying to map out the next step without forcing the issue.
Yzerman does have time to work through it, with months still left to find a deal that makes sense for the organization. The wrinkle is that Detroit is not approaching this like a standard futures swap, which narrows the field and makes the negotiation more delicate. If nothing comes together, Larkin could still be on the roster when the season opens, a possibility that keeps this from being a clean break and leaves the Red Wings waiting on a decision that could define the direction of the whole offseason. [Read more 🡒]