Is Simon Edvinsson’s return to North America a good sign for Red Wings?

There’s hope in Hockeytown, as one of the top young blueliners in the game is back on this side of the pond.

Detroit Red Wings defenseman Simon Edvinsson has returned to North America after he went back to Sweden following training camp last month. The restricted free agent remains unsigned, despite the Red Wings’ strong interest in signing him to a new deal. Edvinsson has expressed that he wouldn’t mind being traded, simply to get a deal done and get back on the ice.

On Wednesday’s edition of Daily Faceoff LIVE, David Pagnotta joined Tyler Yaremchuk and Carter Hutton to explain whether Edvinsson coming back to North America is a good sign for the Red Wings.

David Pagnotta: I believe his trainer is out in Massachusetts, near Boston. So, he’s going to be out there training, making sure that he’s going to be game-ready whenever he either gets the contract he wants from the Wings or they end up trading him. So, still a lot of balls up in the air on that front. Shawn Horcoff remains engaged on both sides with respect to the contract element, and then also trade discussions with other teams. It’s still kind of up in the air right now what direction this goes in.

[Edvinsson] hasn’t wavered off of his stance of being overly frustrated to say, ‘At this point, just trade me.’ I don’t think it’s a demand per se; more of a very loose request, and partially a threat that he’s using, and his camp are using, as part of their bag of tricks here in negotiations, trying to force Detroit’s hand a little bit more in their direction. Now, Detroit has eased up off of their stance of wanting a bridge deal. We touched on it last week. They offered a six-year deal that didn’t get it done. The money was too low, but now they’re open to pretty much any possibility, so we’ll see kind of where they end up if they get something done. If you’re looking at five, six, seven years, you’re looking at $10, 11 million, depending on where you end up. The six-year offer they had, which was around, from my understanding, $8.5 million, they won’t get it done. So, they got to bite down, and after giving DeBrincat $13 million per year, there’s no real excuse out there to say, ‘We can’t afford you.’

You can watch the full segment and entire episode here…