Alex DeBrincat’s contract situation is starting to look like one of those cases where patience could pay off in a big way.
The Detroit Red Wings forward has one year left on his deal, and on The Chris Johnston Show, Chris Johnston and Julian McKenzie dug into whether that puts DeBrincat in a stronger position to wait things out rather than jump early.
McKenzie framed it plainly: with where Detroit stands and with other salaries already on the books, wouldn’t it make more sense for DeBrincat to hold off and see what the market looks like next year?
“If you’re not getting the bag, if you’re not getting what you think is fair, for sure. That like, he’s got the leverage in this situation, and, and even if he doesn’t have a full no-move package. I mean the Red Wings aren’t in a position where they can trade him and get maximum value anyway, because anyone that would be trading for him and giving up real assets is going to want to know that he’s extending with them.”
Johnston said that’s exactly the kind of leverage DeBrincat has right now. He also pointed out that Detroit wants to keep him, and DeBrincat wants to stay, but the timing around the front office has complicated things.
“So, you know, I think he’s in the driver’s seat. And to be honest, I really believe the organization, from what I’ve been told, wants to sign him.
He wants to stay there, but they haven’t had someone in the GM seat to, you know, I think there might have been some preliminary discussions with Steve Yzerman back in the, the spring about concepts of something that could happen. And then, you know, Yzerman’s blown out, and, and you know, there was really no one to negotiate with.”
With Shawn Horcoff now elevated to interim GM, Johnston said Detroit may still get a deal done, but the price tag could be higher than it would have been earlier in the process.
“Now you’ve got, you know, Shawn Horcoff elevated to the interim GM, but he’s got a lot of more pressing things probably on his plate, and, and you know, I’m not saying they won’t get there. I believe they will, but it’s going to cost them more money than if they had got there a few months ago. And, and you know, look, that’s maybe just the price of doing business right now in the NHL.”
Johnston tied Detroit’s situation to a broader trend around the league, saying clubs that moved early on their own players are now in a better spot than teams that waited. He pointed to Montreal as an example, noting how quickly they locked up Ivan Demidov on July 1st and handled Lane Hutson’s deal last fall instead of waiting until he would have been a restricted free agent this past summer.
“You know, all around, I just feel that you know the teams that have waited and been, being cautious or whatever, not, not push the, the limits. I mean, they’re all just going to pay more for their players because of the market correction that we’ve seen happen.”
That leaves Detroit in a tricky spot. Johnston said the organization is still paying for the kind of prices that come with this stage of the process, while also trying to climb back to the level it needs to reach. And he added that there probably isn’t much appetite from the fan base for anything that even resembles a rebuild.
“So that’s the reality in Detroit, and of course they’re paying these kinds of prices, eventually. They still haven’t built a team that’s, that’s back to where they, they need it to be, too. So you know, I can’t imagine fans there have any appetite for anything looking like a rebuild.”
Johnston closed by laying out just how difficult the whole setup is for the Red Wings: the contract decisions, the unsettled front office, and the pressure surrounding the captain situation.
“So this is, this is going to be a tough job is, is really what I’m getting at. Is they haven’t yet had the success.
They’ve got some big contractual decisions. They don’t have a permanent GM, and their captain is no longer their captain.
He’s injured to start camp, and he requested a trade at hasn’t been traded. Other than that, everything’s normal.”
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