Detroit’s young defense is the reason why Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman believes the Red Wings likely won’t make the playoffs this upcoming season.
As the regular season fast approaches, more and more season long predictions are coming out with insiders and hockey outlets beginning to make their call on who wins the cup, makes the playoffs and who will breakout in a big way.
Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman, who is known for his insider reports, has finally announced who he is backing going into the 2025-26 season. Last year, Friedman notably picked the Ottawa Senators as a surprising pick to make the playoffs and was correct with his prediction. When asked about who he’s liking this year he mentioned several teams but not the young Detroit Red Wings.
NHL Insider Says Cap Could Hit New Heights, Boosting Red Wings’ Options
NHL Insider Elliotte Friedman reports the salary cap could rise more than expected in the coming seasons, potentially giving the Detroit Red Wings significantly more flexibility to make future roster moves.
As the Motor City hockey club hopes to snap their near decade-long playoff drought, Friedman explained he thinks their team is still too young. Defenseman Justin Holl and Erik Gustafsson being placed on waivers likely to clears room for 20-year-old Axel Sandin-Pellikka, which could mean they start with a very young defense to start the season.
“They put Holl and Gustafsson on waivers, which is totally fine, but that says to me, they’re thinking about doing a really young defense to start the year, like a really young D, we talked about this at the year end last year how Yzerman didn’t give out term to veterans because he’s like, the young guys need to play and I will bet on these young players, I wonder if that bet really starts right now, I just I don’t think that they’re ready,” Friedman said.
With Sandin-Pellikka projected into the Red Wings defense, that would give their top six, an average age of 24.8 which would be very young with Ben Chairot being the only player on their backend older than 25 years old. The lack of experience would put added pressure on young players like Simon Edvinsson and Moritz Seider to carry the load. The signing of Travis Hamonic ruffled some fans feathers as they didn’t want the 35-year-old veteran to get in the way of some of the young prospects on the rise but his experience may be needed.
Depending on how Detroit is positioned heading into the trade deadline, they may need to bolster their blue line further if they’re in playoff contention. With $13.2 million in available cap space, this could be the year they finally address the long-standing defensive issues that have kept them in the league’s bottom 12 for goals against per game average in nine straight seasons.
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