Well, the Detroit Red Wings 2020-21 season is officially in the books, which means that it is now time to start looking at the offseason, the upcoming NHL Draft, and the 2021-22 season, which will be here before we know it.
One thing to start thinking about is which players on the current roster are most likely to be playing elsewhere in 2021-22.
In a piece published in The Athletic, Max Bultman highlighted four players who are “most likely to depart” before next season begins. Those players are Christian Djoos, Mathias Brome, Valtteri Filppula, and Alex Biega.
Here is what Bultman has to say about those four players and why they are the ‘most likely’ to depart.
Christian Djoos and Mathias Brome
Swiss club EV Zug announced last week it had agreed to a deal with Djoos, and a recent report out of Sweden indicated Brome could be headed to Switzerland as well. Both had their shining moments in their one season with the Red Wings, but by the end, it was hard to see a clear place in the lineup for either next season.
Valtteri Filppula
The writing seemed to be on the wall here once Filppula, soon to be a free agent, didn’t play in the entire month of March. He finished strong, so it’s not clear whether this is the end for Filppula or if he’ll catch on somewhere else. But if he is done as a Red Wing, his Detroit career deserves to be more remembered for its first stint (during which he won the Stanley Cup) than the last two seasons as part of a rebuild.
Alex Biega
Biega has one of the least glamorous jobs in sports as a depth defender on a rebuilding team. It is tough to see him back after playing just 13 games this year, but he did his job admirably and stayed ready for the occasions when Detroit needed him, which deserves a tip of the cap.
Nation, which Red Wings do you think are most likely to be playing elsewhere in 2021-22?
I’m less inclined to write off Biega just yet. If he’s fine filling the same kind of role next season, Detroit could do worse than resigning him.