Doing some Red Wings cap and roster math after signing Lucas Raymond

Where do things stand, how could they work?

The Detroit Red Wings got an important piece of business done this week, signing Lucas Raymond to an eight-year contract extension with an annual value of $8.075 per season.

That deal leaves Detroit with roughly $8.75 million in cap space to get a deal done with Moritz Seider, who is also a pending restricted free agent.

Right now, September 17, this is what the Red Wings projected lineup looks like with a massive Seider-sized hole on the top pairing.

For a quick explainer of how we got here, Steve Yzerman said on Tuesday that once Seider is signed he plans to carry eight defenseman, including Albert Johansson into the start of the season.

He was also wishy-washy on the goalie topic, effectively trying to throw that question down the line and pointing to the fact that Ville Husso’s injury history leaves a question that has to be answered.

But if we assume Husso is healthy, admittedly a big if, and Yzerman is going to hold true to his word on eight defenders, that doesn’t leave room for a young forward to make the NHL opening night roster.

There are 23 NHL roster spots, last time I checked 12+8+3 still equals 23.

So I asked Yzerman about that during his pre-training camp media Zoom on Tuesday.

“Well, you know last year the plan wasn’t to carry three goaltenders. We did for a while. We ended up with an injury in goal,” Yzerman said. “But potentially you know, we have a 23-man roster as you point out, we can make it work with three goaltenders. You know the plan right now is to start with eight defenseman, and we’ll see how we do. If we’re healthy we you can always go 11 and 7 short-term. But basically we’ll figure it out, if any of these young kids makes us a better team and is going to play a regular role, not just a bit-part role, we’ll figure something out. When I say that, there’s lots of different options to, if everybody’s healthy, to get a player on your roster.”

In Yzerman’s defense, he’s been creative enough in the past and hasn’t been shy about making moves that can seem questionable to dump salary and roster spots. He’s done this both during the regular season and in the offseason, including the move to dump Jake Walman and sweeten the deal to the San Jose Sharks before the draft.

He’s also not been shy about waiving players and sending them to the AHL, a bit more aggressively than some other GMs.

If you wanna read the tea leaves, or between the lines, one of the biggest questions for me on this roster is how long until Justin Holl is moved to open up a roster spot for a young forward?

Holl only played 38 games last season and only played three after Jan. 31, essentially living in the press box as a healthy scratch. Holl makes $3.4 million against the cap, and still has another year remaining. In a perfect world the Red Wings would find a way to move him out to open up cap space for the 2025-26 season.

Right now Holl has limited value and isn’t a great trade candidate. According to some people I’ve spoken to around the NHL any trade for Holl would require a pretty large sweetener from the Red Wings to make it work.

In the short-term, Detroit could waive Holl and punt the issue down the road, especially since cap space is expected to open up next summer when Husso’ deal expires and Jeff Petry will also likely be off the books.

For a Carter Mazur, Nate Danielson, Marco Kasper, or an Elmer Soderblom to make the NHL roster, they’re going to need another shoe to drop in some fashion. Maybe it’s simple, maybe an injury, maybe it’s something bigger.

Either way Detroit will be a candidate to make an early-season roster move, because while Yzerman said 11-7 is doable in the short-term, it’s not great long-term business.