Detroit Red Wings defenseman Moritz Seider has never played a playoff game in his first five NHL seasons. Seider went sixth overall to Detroit in 2019, the first draft pick Steve Yzerman made as Red Wings general manager.
Seider spent this summer back home in Germany, and the noise out of Detroit found him anyway. Dylan Larkin had been the Red Wings captain since January 2021 until he requested a trade this offseason and the club stripped him of the “C” on Sept. 11. Yzerman is no longer the general manager, and Shawn Horcoff was named interim GM on Sept. 15.
The Noise Reached Him in Germany
Seider knows how dramatic the offseason was for the organization. Max Bultman of The Athletic wrote about how Seider lived through it from the other side of the ocean.
Sitting outside a coffee shop in Detroit’s northern suburbs, Seider said, “It was hard. Especially like not being here and hearing all this noise.”
He leaned on phone calls from teammates and people around the team to sort out what was real and what was only a rumor. The Red Wings defenseman also said, “I think that was the hardest part for me. That’s why maybe I stayed even home a little longer than usual, to try to escape that whole thing, because you will get confronted with it now that you’re here.”
That fits who he has been since he arrived. Seider stays out of the drama, puts his head down and works, and a summer of change in the front office did not pull him into it.
Moritz Seider Fits the Captain Profile
Seider and Lucas Raymond wore the “A” alongside Larkin last season. Detroit has said it will open 2026-27 without a captain and will revisit the job once new hockey operations leadership is in place, and the club has not announced its letters for the coming season. Seider is the name that keeps coming up anyway, including on ESPN’s broadcast.
He is 25 and mature past it. Seider has not missed a game in five NHL seasons, 410 in a row. In 82 games last season he scored 10 goals and added 50 assists, a career-high 60 points, with a plus-15 rating.
Seider Sees 2026-27 as His Chance
Detroit has missed the playoffs 10 straight seasons, the longest active drought in the NHL. Seider sees this one as a challenge worth taking, hard summer and all. Seider said:
“That’s been my theme for my whole career. I mean, I’ve been a bit of a surprise for a lot of people. So, that was the perfect challenge for me to kind of have them second-guessing about (me), and I feel like we could write our own story this year. … If we can come together as a team and really emphasize that togetherness, I think there will be a lot of possibilities for success in this locker room. I feel like we just can’t waste this year.”
If Seider is going to drag Detroit back into the playoff race, he has to be the best player on the ice most nights. Hard summers have a way of showing up in October.
