Red Wings: Evgeny Svechnikov gets one last opportunity to impress

The Detroit Red Wings announced yesterday that the team came to terms with forward Evgeny Svechnikov on a new one-year extension.

Consider it a last-gasp of hope for Evgeny Svechnikov to earn himself a spot on the Detroit Red Wings roster.  It’s a no-brainer for general manager Steve Yzerman to retain the once highly touted forward to another one-year deal, especially when you consider he’s still just 23-years old.  The terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

The Red Wings are desperate to find any depth scoring forward available to help lengthen out their lineup. Although Svechnikov has scoring abilities, they’ve yet to translate at the NHL level.  In all fairness, the young Russian forward has yet to get a real opportunity playing as a regular in Detroit.

Svechnikov has played a total of 20 NHL games over the last three seasons combined.  He’s accounted for four points, two goals, and two assists.  In those 20 contests, Svechnikov’s only averaged a mere 9:09 minutes per night.  One positive thing that does stand out is Evgeny’s above-average 51% Cori For Percentage (CF) over those 20 NHL games.

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Despite just playing four NHL games last season, Svechnikov earned a CF% of 55.6 but failed to record a point on seven shots averaging just 8:20 minutes per game.  The Detroit Red Wings as a group earned themselves an atrocious 45.5% CF rating last season.

Svechnikov showed plenty of promise during his first season with the Detroit Red Wings organization as a 20-year old recording 20 goals, 31 assists totaling 51 points over 74 games with the Grand Rapids Griffins.

Since that formidable first professional season, it’s been a downhill slide for the young forward. During his second year with the Griffins, Svechnikov only mustered 23 points in 57 contests.  He then became sidelined for an entire season having knee surgery and returned last year, producing 25 points while scoring 11 goals in 51 games.

Svechnikov’s the elder brother of the Carolina Hurricanes superstar Andrei Svechnikov.  Maybe Carolina is where Evgeny eventually lands hoping to rekindle some of that offensive ability he’s got bottled up, but for now, we hope that scoring ability can help the Wings.

Yzerman is undoubtedly hoping the young forward can carve out a role in Detroit and beat out the likes of Adam Erne, Christoffer Ehn, Brendan Perlini, or Dmytro Timashov earning himself a regular spot in 2020 as a bottom-six forward.  Detroit needs to add some depth scoring, and replacing a grinder with limited scoring ability in favor of someone who has the potential to find the back of the net will be very beneficial to the Red Wings.