Ted Kulfan talks to Steve Yzerman about the upcoming season and the three-goalie competition.
Ted Kulfan talks to Steve Yzerman about the upcoming season and the three-goalie competition.
Detroit — General manager Steve Yzerman has one big task completed before the Red Wings begin training camp on Thursday, and one more remains.
Then it’s time to kick off the regular season and get the Wings to take the next step and make the playoffs after they failed in the tiebreaker last season.
The Wings agreed to terms with restricted free agent forward Lucas Raymond on Monday night on an eight-year contract worth $64.6 million, which equates to an average annual value of $8,075,000.
This leaves defender Moritz Seider, another important piece of the Wings puzzle, as the only player without a contract before the start of training camp on Thursday.
Yzerman was pleased to sign 22-year-old Raymond to a long-term contract with the Wings.
“I don’t know if there’s a specific age when a player peaks, but he’s just in the early stages of his prime,” Yzerman said Tuesday during a Zoom call with the media. “I expect him to become a better hockey player for a number of reasons.”
“He is an extremely ambitious and intelligent player and will continue to improve in the coming years thanks to his motivation.”
Raymond was the Wings’ leading scorer last year with 72 points and played in all 82 games, setting career highs in goals (31), assists (41) and points.
During the Wings’ final stretch toward a possible playoff spot, Raymond played the best hockey of his three-year career, scoring seven goals and 12 points in eight exciting playoff-like games in April.
Yzerman is optimistic that the Wings and Seider will reach an agreement soon.
“We continue to talk,” Yzerman said. “I’m confident that we can come to an agreement at some point — obviously it would be better for both sides if it happened sooner rather than later. I don’t think we’re very far apart. Hopefully we continue to make progress.”
The Wings have made steady progress under Yzerman and over the past two seasons under coach Derek Lalonde, but the Wings have now missed the playoffs for eight straight seasons.
“I want to see progress, progress in our teams as a whole, progress in all the areas we’ve always talked about and also individually with our younger players,” Yzerman said. “As long as we’re moving in the right direction, it’s positive.”
Lucas Raymond talks about his new eight-year contract to stay in Detroit.
Lucas Raymond talks about his new eight-year contract to stay in Detroit.
“Reaching the playoffs would be another positive step. I will think about that over the course of the season and then see what progress we make.”
The key to the Wings’ success will be having a better defense, improved special teams and replacing the offense that was lost last summer with the loss of forwards David Perron, Daniel Sprong and Robby Fabbri to free agents or transfers.
“We have to be a better hockey club defensively,” Yzerman said. “The special teams have to be good. Our special teams both improved last season and we scored more goals, (but) we allowed too many to make the playoffs. You have to be solid in those areas. You can handle maybe not having the best power play, but you should be solid in all the other areas. You can handle maybe not having the best shorthanded unit, but you should be solid in all the other areas.
But ultimately, being a good hockey team with good defense is crucial for long-term success.”
Yzerman is confident that the signing of Vladimir Tarasenko, the development of Jonatan Berggren, a full season of Patrick Kane and a healthy Dylan Larkin for 82 games will help replace the lost offense.
“We have to score goals,” Yzerman said.
Yzerman touched on a number of other topics in his pre-training camp media session:
▶ Yzerman is prepared to play with three goalies again this season if necessary (Cam Talbot, Alex Lyon, Ville Husso), but much depends on Husso’s health.
“That’s a decision we don’t have to make today,” Yzerman said. “Ville was injured almost all of last season. It’s not an ideal situation to have three players, but if we have to do that, we want to make sure Ville Husso is 100% healthy and playing. He is today, but he hasn’t played a game in a long time (since February), so we want to see him in preseason and will reevaluate as time goes on.”
▶ Yzerman viewed the decision to take first-round draft pick Michael Brandsegg-Nygard to training camp as valuable experience for the young player.
“We wanted to bring him in and get him a little more experience here,” Yzerman said. “He should be with our team and work with our coaches a little bit. We plan to have him play in the preseason. So we’ll bring him in, work with our coaches and our team, work on his skating, his strength and conditioning, get a little bit of preseason experience and then see what happens.”
▶ Yzerman painted an uncertain future for the prospect tournament, or the games that precede the Wings’ training camp. The tournament was reduced from eight teams to just the Wings and Dallas, who played two prospect games last weekend.
“The tournament seems to have run its course,” Yzerman said. “There are different reasons. Teams wanted to do different things, some didn’t want to play four games, some wanted to save the cost and not travel to Traverse City. Dallas and we played two games and it was a productive weekend. Would we be interested in playing a third game? That would be ideal and (Stars GM) Jim Nill and I have talked about somehow getting a third team in.
“The event in Traverse City is still a bit uncertain at the moment.”
▶ Yzerman wants to see a complete and productive Berggren, a restricted forward who signed a one-year deal on Monday.
“Just be a good hockey player in all aspects of the game,” Yzerman said. “Offensively and defensively, he’s got a lot of talent. We’re really happy with his performance down the stretch (in Grand Rapids). It’s been a rough year for him, his performance has been a little up and down (between the Wings and Grand Rapids) and more than he would have liked. But he’s worked hard every time he’s gone to GR and it looks like he’s worked hard over the summer. He’s in really good shape. He’s a smart player and it’s just about making it at the NHL level.”
▶ Yzerman said the only players who will not be ready to practice on Thursday when training camp begins are junior players: defenseman Shai Buium, who was injured blocking a shot during youth games, and forward Ondrej Becher, who sprained his ankle during practice.
@tkulfan
