Well watching the wings this year is gonna be another challenge
Looking at our roster I see the following:
Bertuzzi - Larkin - Mantha
Hirose - Flipper - Athanasiou
Rasmussen - Glendenning - Helm
Abdelkader - Nielsen - De La Rose
DeKeyser - Green
Nemeth - Hronek
Cholowski - Bowey
Howard
Bernier
Ericsson and Daley being healthy scratches.
Green will get moved near the deadline and I imagine Moritz Seider will get brought up to replace him and see out the year. Daley will probably also manage to get traded for defensive depth. We should get an early rounder for Green and a late pick for Daley
I can see Abdelkader being a buyout candidate for next year, we make some good savings and it should fall right around our timeline for handing out bigger contracts that he starts coming off of the books entirely.
Happy to give Svechnikov, Veleno, Zadina, Kuffner et al all the time this year in Grand Rapids. Veleno and Zadina will be ready next year and Svech could do with a year to play himself back up to the level he was approaching before his knee injury last year. At that point if we have bought out Abdelkader and managed to shift a contract like Helm whilst retaining salary (Ken Holland will definitely fall for it to get McDavid some wing help) then next season we could be looking at:
Bertuzzi - Larkin - Mantha
Hirose - Veleno - Athanasiou
Zadina - Rasmussen - Svechnikov
Kuffner - Nielsen - Glendenning
DeKeyser - Hronek
Cholowski - Seider
???? - Bowey
Bernier
Larsson
I can see Stevie Y making a trade to maybe acquire a legit Top 2 defenseman. Maybe dangle Athanasiou's RFA/Arbitration eligibility out there. I am quite surprised we didn't make a move like that for Trouba, given Winnpeg's cap situation I think a guy like AA would have benefitted them immensely. Of all the teams to trade with, Winnipeg could be the most interesting for us, we could move Green across to them which gives them something back on their D that they have lost they also have home town Michigan boy Connor who needs paying, lets them pay Laine instead, or indeed we go after Laine with maybe a 1st rounder, Green (half salary retained), AA and another throw in.
Could be a big year for Detroit, I know Yzerman has preached patience but this could be a really opportune time for him to strike, we do have a lot of interesting assets for the first time in ages.