Could a slow start pressure Red Wings to re-sign Simon Edvinsson?
There’s a lot of chaos going on in Hockeytown, and the team is only just about to drop the puck on the new season.
Amid a tumultuous offseason, which saw Dylan Larkin request a trade from the only team he’s ever known, him getting stripped of his captaincy, general manager Steve Yzerman stepping down and the team failing to find a replacement, the Detroit Red Wings have to deal with missing one of their top blueliners as their regular season gets underway on Friday night.
At this point, defenseman Simon Edvinsson remains without a contract. The restricted free agent attended training camp without a new deal in place, with many expecting him to sign once Detroit figured out its GM situation. However, even as the Original Six team (finally) appointed Shawn Horcoff interim GM, no contract has been worked out with Edvinsson, as the young rearguard returned to his native Sweden.
As the new campaign is set to begin, many wonder how Detroit will look with Edvinsson on the other side of the globe, as the team begins 2026-27 with a lot more questions than answers.
On Friday’s edition of Daily Faceoff LIVE, David Pagnotta joined Tyler Yaremchuk and Carter Hutton to explain how a rough start for the Wings might force them to settle on a contract with Edvinsson.
David Pagnotta: If they’re 1-5 in their first six…it’s not going to be good. At the same time, what the hell’s the direction of this team then? Because you’ve got an interim GM…Shawn Horcoff is going to be given the opportunity to do whatever he needs to do, and at the same time prove that he is capable of holding the fort as full-time GM. It’s almost a directionless team, right? We don’t know if they should be. They want to obviously compete for the playoffs and they want to push for it. But you’ve got a guy who doesn’t want to be there in Larkin, so you’re waiting on that. You won’t take a futures-only package, which, if they wanted to, they could have traded them already multiple times. You have to deal with Edvinsson, who you’ve now pissed off, and he’s probably not going to go, ‘Alright, fine. I’ll take $7 million.’ You want him at seven years? It’s probably $77 million, in that in that ballpark, or give him a two-year deal, lower money, but then you have to deal with arbitration after his deal…and it gets a little complicated in that respect.
They’re in a really, really tough spot, and the longer it goes, it’s going to affect these conversations, and that’s to your point, depending on how they do it, like if they’re 2-8 in their first 10, holy shit, that’s not good.
You can watch the full segment and entire episode here…
