With youthful players rising through the ranks, the Red Wings might be competitive in 2024–2025. Additionally, their average cap hit will be competitive.
Unless they get bitten by the injury bug, there’s no doubt that the Detroit Red Wings will be competitive in 2024–25. Strangely enough, though, this squad doesn’t have much of a cap hit…yet. The worst part is this: Out of the 23 players expected, only 20 have been signed thus far. Lucas Raymond and Moritz Seider still need to sign their individual extensions, so that leaves 22 players signed.
I had to do some research in order to determine what the average player will make in 2024–2025. Additionally, I stumbled upon a fantastic article by The Hockey Writers’ Adam Proteau, in which he highlighted Brock Faber and Owen Power’s contracts as projection points for Seider.
We’ll place Seider in the range of $8.425 million, as Power and Faber are at $8.35 million and $8.5 million, respectively, on average. This implies that we will add $8.42 million to Detroit’s estimated cap hit of $70,351,806 per Puck Pedia. Although it’s a solid starting point, the figure will undoubtedly change once we learn what Seider will be making.
Now, moving on to Lucas Raymond, it’s disappointing that Proteau doesn’t draw any parallels in this instance. Nevertheless, he did say, “at least $7 million or $8 million,” so why not use that amount for this estimate of $7.5 million? In 2024–2025, the typical Red Wings player will earn X dollars.
Adding $8.425 million to $7.5 million yields $15,925,000. This may then be added to $70,351,806 to produce $86,276,806, which we can then divide by 22 players. Although there will be a 23rd player in the starting lineup, for the purposes of this forecast, we’ll just include the players that we know will be there initially.
Thus, the average player would receive a relatively large $3.92 million when $86,276,806 is divided by 22. Assuming the Red Wings sign a player for $800,000, or bring someone up from the AHL, I predict that this last player will be paid in the six figures. We get $87,076,806 by adding that to our $86,276,806, which is $3.785.
As a result, we may estimate that the average salary for a Red Wings player in 2024–25 will be between $3.785 and $3.92 million. Since I like to use round figures here, let’s calculate the average to determine the final estimate for opening night. By summing the two figures, we arrive at $3.852 million for each participant.