As the Red Wings head toward another season, the bigger picture around their rebuild still looks muddy. Detroit is a decade into this thing and still searching for a real identity, and that’s where the criticism of its prospect development keeps landing: too much patience, not enough urgency.
That charge followed Steve Yzerman through his seven-plus years as general manager. He did plenty to stock the system with talent, but the knock on his approach was always the same - prospects often had to wait until they were clearly ready to force their way onto the roster. The organization seemed content to let them marinate.
Now, with several of those once-promising prospects gone and a supporting cast on the NHL roster tied up in questionable free-agent deals, it’s fair to ask whether Detroit waited too long with some of its young players while trying to rebuild one of the league’s weakest development pipelines.
Sebastian Cossa is the clearest example.
When the Red Wings moved up from No. 20 in the 2021 draft to take Cossa instead of Jesper Wallstedt, it felt like a bet that Detroit saw something others missed. Five years later, Wallstedt has already put together a strong first full season as Minnesota’s backup goalie. It wasn’t perfect, but the young Swede handled himself well as the Wild reached the second round of the playoffs this year.
Cossa, meanwhile, has just 75 minutes of NHL experience. He’s now on a two-year, $2 million contract with the Utah Mammoth, while Detroit brought in Daniil Tarasov on a one-year, $2 million deal to back up this season.
What makes the Cossa situation harder to ignore is that the opportunity was there. Over the last two years, Detroit cycled through Ville Husso, Petr Mrazek, Cam Talbot, James Reimer, and John Gibson, yet Cossa stayed in Grand Rapids. He put together back-to-back All-Star seasons as the main goalie for the AHL Griffins, but the Wings still never gave him a real NHL run.
Even late last season, when Talbot had fewer than ten appearances and Gibson looked worn down, Detroit still didn’t call Cossa up and let him play.
Instead, the team got to a point where it seemed Cossa had slipped behind Michal Postava late last year and might have been exposed to waivers if Detroit tried to send him down. Rather than roll with him, the Red Wings moved on from him so they could add a prospect with scoring ability.
That didn’t fix the immediate problem.
What it did was make a different kind of bet: that the player they sent out the door would be the one best able to tell them, three or four years from now, who actually fit this roster’s needs.
In Other News...
Red Wings Rebuild Just Got A Stunning 2023 Draft Re-Evaluation
A fresh 2023 draft redraft from analyst Scott Wheeler is the kind of exercise that can make any rebuild look smarter in hindsight, and it gave the Red Wings a particularly flattering review. Wheeler slotted four Detroit picks into the first round, a striking nod to how much talent the organization found in that class and how much the prospect pipeline has come to define the franchises direction.
The most eye-catching part for Detroit is not just the number of names that moved up, but the range of spots they occupied in Wheelers version of the board, with the Wings also linked to alternate first-round targets in Roman Kantserov and Michael Hrabel. It adds another layer to a summer already shaped by Patrick Kanes return to the Chicago Blackhawks, a development that stings a little more when framed against how productive he was in Detroit and how much power-play value he brought before moving on. [Read more 🡒]
Red Wings Legend Sergei Fedorov Suddenly Faces Serious New Controversy
The Red Wings spent earlier this year honoring Sergei Fedorov the way only franchise icons are honored, retiring No. 91 and placing one of the most decorated players in team history alongside the greats. Fedorovs Detroit legacy is secure, built on three Stanley Cup championships and a Hart Trophy that helped define an era when he was one of the NHLs most dynamic stars.
Now his name is back in the news for a far different reason, one that reaches well beyond hockey and into the geopolitical tensions surrounding his post-playing career. Fedorov remains connected to CSKA Moscow through a board role, and the latest controversy adds another complicated layer to the public image of a player whose on-ice accomplishments in Detroit have long stood apart from everything else around him. [Read more 🡒]
Red Wings Linked To Another Winger As Offseason Questions Keep Growing
With the Red Wings still searching for a general manager and trying to keep moving their roster forward, the offseason has already turned into a balancing act between long-term structure and immediate help up front. One name that has surfaced in that conversation is Eeli Tolvanen, a winger whose career path has taken a few turns but whose skill set has kept him on the radar as Detroit looks for more punch in its forward group.
Tolvanen is still available weeks into free agency, which only adds to the sense that the market has not quite settled around him yet. For Detroit, the appeal is easy enough to see: a player who could fit into the top six and give the lineup more depth while the front office situation sorts itself out, even if nothing official has been reported and the next step remains unclear. [Read more 🡒]