Detroit Red Wings: 3 restricted free agents to avoid re-signing
By Bob Heyrman
Adam Erne
After Yzerman secured his new job in Detroit, he quickly added a familiar face in Adam Erne to the bottom of the Red Wings lineup. Erne brings some grit, he likes to bang the body and during his Tampa Bay Lightning days had the ability to chip in on the scoreboard.
The problem this season; that offense didn’t come north with Erne to Detroit.
Just a season after recording career-highs across the board, notching seven goals, 13 assists totaling 20 points with the Lightning, Erne’s production rapidly decreased with the Wings. In 56 contests this past season in Detroit, Erne scored a mere two goals and added three assists along with producing an atrocious Corsi For Percentage of 43.4. Yikes.
The Detroit Red Wings already struggle to find primary scoring; the secondary scoring is abysmal. Yzerman and the Wings need to find a way to lengthen their depth chart, and plugging a few forwards into the bottom-six with some scoring ability or at lease scoring upside would be a great start.
Wouldn’t you instead see players like Evgeny Svechnikov, Michael Rasmussen, and Filip Zadina round out the teams’ depth? The Wings also have Joe Veleno and Dmytro Timashov that have the potential to emerge as reliable middle of the lineup NHL players.
The Wings already have a plethora of role players with limited scoring ability. Players like an overpriced Justin Abdelkader can fill Erne’s role. The Wings also have players like Christoffer Ehn, Darren Helm, Valtteri Filppula, Frans Nielsen, and Luke Glendening. All those players are either rapidly declining or fill the ‘grinding’ type role Erne does.