Dude, What’s Taking So Long??!!
I can't understand why it's taking so long for the Detroit Red Wings to sign their top-level restricted free agents. And I'm talking about forward Lucas Raymond (pictured above) and defenseman Moritz Seider.
Neither Raymond or Seider have the service time in the National Hockey League to qualify for unrestricted free agency yet. And even though other teams have a chance to give them offer sheets, the Wings would almost certainly match those offers. And even if they didn't, the draft compensation that the Red Wings would get is so much that it would scare teams away from offering offer sheets to players the quality of Seider or Raymond.
Knowing that, why is it taking so long for the Wings to bring back two of their most important players? It's almost August. Training camp begins in September. And then the season starts in October. Time is of the essence! And the Wings have just under $18 million in salary cap space to use, according to puckpedia.com.
Re-signing Seider and Raymond will eat up a majority of that space. But they are worth it. Outside of team captain Dylan Larkin, who is more important to the Red Wings roster than those two guys???
I expect Steve Yzerman to get them signed. But it should've happened by now. The team signed fellow RFA Joe Veleno last week. You're telling me that Veleno was/is a higher priority than Raymond and Seider???!!! I don't think so.
The Red Wings will be under pressure to make the playoffs this coming season. This upcoming season is the sixth year of the rebuild, and they won't go anywhere without Lucas Raymond and Mo Seider (pictured above).
Stop screwing around and get them signed!!!!