Detroit built this mess, and it had every chance not to.
Simon Edvinsson is a 23-year-old top-pairing defenseman the coaching staff has made a point of pairing with Moritz Seider. He kept showing up for a team that couldn't be bothered to close a deal. Now Elliotte Friedman is passing along that if this drags past Dec. 1, Edvinsson is prepared to go play in Sweden instead. "That's how strong his resolve is," Friedman said. A kid would rather sit out an NHL season than keep waiting on the Red Wings. The organization is failing at the single easiest decision in front of it.
Start with how long Edvinsson's file sat gathering dust. Steve Yzerman was out as general manager in mid-July, with Shawn Horcoff running things on an interim basis and no permanent replacement hired. For most of the summer, the people who were supposed to be negotiating a long-term deal with a cornerstone defenseman didn't have a decision-maker in the chair. Edvinsson's camp has said plainly that the empty GM office is why nothing moved for months. A franchise let its best young defenseman's future hang while it figured out who was in charge.
Now look at what Edvinsson did while Detroit dithered. He reported to training camp without a contract. He paid out of his own pocket to insure himself so he could keep practicing with his teammates and stay game-ready. "If something happens that you don't want to happen, you have to cover it yourself. I've bumped up my insurance a little extra now," he said. A 23-year-old showed more loyalty to the organization than it showed him. He risked his own body and his own money to keep the door open, and the reward was a camp that ended with no deal and a flight back to Sweden.
The gap is small, and the money is sitting right there. Detroit offered six years at around $8.5 million per season, in the neighborhood of what Seider makes. Edvinsson's side has been asking for seven years at roughly $11 million. That's a real gap, but a bridgeable one, and at the end of October the Red Wings led the entire league with $19.68 million in cap space. You cannot sell "we can't afford him" when you have the most room in the NHL. This came down to will and competence. Detroit came up short on both.
The front office hasn't even held a steady position. Horcoff said in mid-October he had zero interest in trading Edvinsson, that the plan was to sign him. Within weeks he was acknowledging he'd be open to a trade depending on how things develop. That reversal looks like a group reacting to a situation it lost control of.
The one thing that might buy Detroit sympathy is the offer-sheet angle, the idea that there was some clever cap or asset calculus worth protecting. It doesn't hold. Edvinsson is eligible to sign an offer sheet with another team, and longtime Red Wings reporter Ansar Khan has indicated the organization was prepared to match whatever he received. If you're ready to match any number a rival throws at him anyway, dragging your own negotiation to the brink of losing him to Europe accomplishes nothing except alienating the player you're trying to keep.
This isn't happening in isolation. Captain Dylan Larkin was suspended without pay on Oct. 29 after telling the team he wouldn't play until he's moved, forfeiting about $41,000 a day. A couple of days ago, that tally had climbed to around $559,000. Two players, two standoffs, and the same front office at the center of each. A franchise that can't keep its captain happy and can't sign a 23-year-old who wants to stay has a problem bigger than any single contract.
None of the figures here are final, and talks are still live with the deadline closing in. Edvinsson hasn't formally requested a trade. Maybe Horcoff gets it done in the days he has left. If he does, it won't erase the fact that it never should have come to a Friedman segment about a Swedish exit plan.
Strip away the noise: this is a team that had five months and more cap space than anyone in hockey, with a willing player ready to stay. It still managed to make a kid who bought his own insurance feel like leaving the league was the better option. If Edvinsson ends up in an SHL rink this winter, the people who were supposed to pay him are the ones to answer for it, not the 23-year-old who kept practicing without a paycheck.
