Detroit Red Wings: Grading the Forwards 2019-20 Performances
By Tyler Kotila
The Detroit Red Wings season is in shambles, but take a look at the 2019-20 forwards and how they fared in terms of player grades.
During the 2019-20 season, before it was suspended, the Detroit Red Wings locked up the first overall pick in the 2020 NHL Entry Draft. The season was incredibly tough to watch, and in the latest group of player grades, take a look at how the forwards fared on the season.
The Red Wings had twenty forwards who played games for the team during the 2019-20 season with a few heading back to the minors, two getting traded, and others spending some time on the Injured Reserve (IR).
Going into the 2019-20 offseason, the Red Wings will have a plethora of restricted free agents and an unrestricted free agent to work around. The unrestricted free agent is Sam Gagner, who was acquired at the trade deadline in 2019-20.
The group of unrestricted free agents consists of Tyler Bertuzzi, Christoffer Ehn, Adam Erne, Robby Fabbri, Taro Hirose, Anthony Mantha, Brandon Perlini, and Evgeni Svechnickov, and Dmytro Timashov. So the Red Wings forwards will likely see some money coming their way this offseason in contract negotiations.
Someone like Justin Abdelkader should be on his way out as he has diminished and regressed to next to nothing. Other veterans like Darren Helm and Frans Nielsen are still going to be returning to the team with their contract situations.
Looking at some overall statistics from the 2019-20 season, Dylan Larkin led all forwards with nineteen goals, thirty-four assists for a total of fifty-three points on the season. Bertuzzi also had a good season, falling just behind Larkin with twenty-one goals and twenty-seven assists for forty-eight points.
Perhaps one of the storylines to pay attention to was the inability of Hirose to catch on in the National Hockey League (NHL), struggling during the 2019-20 season. Hirose was poised for a sort of breakout season, but ultimately would fall into a drought and end up in the minor leagues.