Red Wings: 3 players to target after NHL’s salary cap announcement

The Detroit Red Wings should scoop up Vancouver Canucks goaltender Jacob Markstrom to be Jonathan Bernier’s battery mate.

While the Vancouver Canucks are not in as hot of water as a team like the Arizona Coyotes, they still will have to decide what the future of their goaltending will look like. The way things are now, they have three rostered goaltenders with Jacob Markstrom on the long-term injured reserve.

If the Red Wings want to have a successful and competitive netminder tandem in the 2020-21 season, they should try and scoop up Markstrom or someone similar. Personally, I have been advocating for Robin Lehner, but Markstrom would be a more than acceptable signing.

Looking at the Vancouver Canucks CapFriendly page, they are on schedule to have $17,075,128 in cap space for the 2020-21 season with 15 rostered players and 31 overall contracts. They have the room to sign Markstrom back, but they do have a goaltender under contract for 2020-21.

They will be losing out on Louis Domingue, but have netminder Thatcher Demko on the books for $1.05 million in 2020-21 with Michael DiPietro also on an entry-level contract, but currently non-rostered. The Canucks might opt to let Markstrom go and work with the goaltenders they have.

If so, the Red Wings could offer Markstrom a deal around close to $4 million to get him to Hockeytown. Markstrom found his way into the net for 43 games in 2019-20, where he had a 23-16-4 record while posting a .918 save percentage and a 2.75 goals-against average for the Canucks.

Sidelined with injuries, Markstrom looks to bounce back, but the Red Wings could be keeping an eye on him while the league gets back on the ice. If the opportunity presents itself, the organization should throw an offer to pending UFA Markstrom, just to gauge interest level.