Detroit Red Wings will get Troy Stecher back later in the season

While the Detroit Red Wings have recently spent their fair share of time away from the ice, there are some positives to the break they had around the holidays coming into the New Year.

The Detroit Red Wings will be able to get some players back who were injured and see them play more games throughout the season with the schedule being re-worked. One of these players is defenseman Troy Stecher who has a wrist injury that has kept him off the ice.

Stecher was one of the players that the Red Wings were expected to lose in the 2021 NHL Expansion Draft that brought the birth of the Seattle Kraken’s roster. Ultimately, the Kraken would choose to select Dennis Cholowski, who has since been added to the Washington Capitals via waivers.

But, on the other hand, the Red Wings have been able to keep Stecher, who is on a cheap and team-friendly deal that will only cost $1.7 million for the 2021-22 season. He is an unrestricted free agent after this season, but it’s been known that General Manager Steve Yzerman likes Stecher.

As the 2021-22 season goes on, the hope will be that Stecher can return around the time of the Olympic break, or at least when that was scheduled to occur since the NHL will not be sending players to participate in this year’s games.

Detroit Red Wings defenseman Troy Stecher will benefit from time off.

In early November, Stecher would sustain a wrist injury that would send him to the injured reserve, and he has been off the ice ever since. But, since the Red Wings had games postponed and will have to re-work things, Stecher has a chance to get back in action later in the season.

While his season was not the best, he truly did not get a chance to even really settle in. So far, in 2021-22, the Red Wings saw Stecher log just six games where he had only one assist. While his presence in the team’s defense core is not overly significant, it will be nice to have him back for depth.

After all, after a 2020-21 season where he showed signs of getting better, it would be nice to see if he could get some things going with the 2021-22 defense core. Plus, it’s better than throwing Danny DeKeyser out there night in and night out.

Stecher had three goals, and eight assists for 11 total points over 44 games played last season. It seemed like Stecher was starting to fit in nicely and would bring positive improvement to the Red Wings lineup.

The chance for him to weasel into some extra games and make the most of the 2021-22 season only helps the Red Wings depth later.