Detroit Red Wings general manager Steve Yzerman has said his team needs a change, and the offseason opens with a hard look at which members of the 2025-26 roster are most likely to stay and who could be out the door before next season. That review reaches beyond the obvious veterans and into the young core that helped carry Detroit through the year.
Moritz Seider emerged as the Red Wings’ best player in 2025-26, finishing with a career-high 60 points at 25 years old. Lucas Raymond was right behind him in importance, ending the season with 76 points at 24, while Simon Edvinsson managed 72 games despite two knee surgeries, one before the season and another midseason. Each is central to Detroit’s next step, but each also sits at a different point in the club’s planning.
The timing matters because this summer brings contract pressure as much as roster review. Edvinsson will need a new deal as a restricted free agent, and Dylan Larkin turns 30 this summer after another strong year in which he scored a career-high 34 goals and posted his fifth consecutive 30-goal season. Alex DeBrincat, one year out from unrestricted free agency, was Detroit’s best and most consistent forward all season and became the club’s first 40-goal scorer since Marian Hossa in 2008-09.
That top-end production gives Detroit something to build on, but it also sharpens the decisions ahead. Yzerman’s need for change is not aimed only at the edges of the roster; it comes after a season in which several of the team’s most important players either elevated their game or forced the club to confront a new round of financial and lineup decisions. The Red Wings are not just choosing who returns. They are deciding which version of the roster will define 2026-27.
The hardest case may be Marco Kasper, whose production fell from 37 points as a rookie to 19 this season. He finished in Detroit’s bottom six, a step back that stands in contrast to the progress elsewhere in the lineup. Even so, Yzerman and coach Todd McLellan reiterated their belief in Kasper at the end of the season, which suggests the club is not ready to move on from him as quickly as it might from other parts of the depth chart.
That leaves Detroit in a familiar spot: enough talent to justify patience, enough turnover to make patience risky. Seider, Raymond, Larkin and DeBrincat give the Red Wings a core that can compete, but the mix around them still has to be sorted out, and the next few months will determine how much of last season’s roster survives the push to 2026-27.
