Just days before they take the ice for training camp, the Detroit Red Wings have completed one of their most important pieces of offseason business, signing 22-year-old star forward Lucas Raymond to an eight-year contract worth $8.075 million per year Monday night.
The deal ensures one of Detroit’s most important players will remain a Red Wing long-term and sets the foundation for their long-term salary cap outlook. Raymond’s eight-year contract will take him to age 30, encompassing the vast majority of his prime. It also avoids a worst-case scenario in which the Red Wings, who missed the playoffs by one point last season to continue an eight-year playoff drought, could have had to open camp without their leading scorer from 2023-24.
What does Raymond mean to the Red Wings?
He has a chance to become their best offensive player. That was on display in his breakout 31-goal, 72-point season in 2023-24, and especially down the stretch, when he willed the Red Wings to overtime with a hat trick against Pittsburgh and scored the tying and winning goals in a comeback against Montreal.
His nine points in five massive, high-pressure games down the stretch were a great sign for his long-term projection as not just a clutch performer, but a potential high-end winger in the NHL. His 72 points were already 12th among NHL left wingers last season — and were just 11 points off the top five. It’s possible Raymond could enter that territory as soon as this season.
Why a long-term deal made sense
Nothing gets NHL players paid quite like offense. And for Raymond, all indications are that there’s a whole lot more offense on the way. That makes a long-term deal an easy decision: If he merely continues at his 2023-24 scoring rate, the deal should age well as the NHL’s salary cap continues to rise. Meanwhile, if he takes the next step to being a point-per-game player, and among the best wingers in the league — which feels possible — it will quickly age into a steal.
There’s always some risk associated with going long-term, and in this case, it mostly hinges on Raymond being able to maintain or improve upon his production. But given Raymond’s track record to date, Detroit has plenty of reason to believe he’ll do just that.
Deals like this are the recent trend in the NHL for players of Raymond’s caliber, and that’s for a reason: There’s a lot of potential upside for the Red Wings.
On the $8.075 million AAV
Raymond was a tricky valuation in part because of the range of his comparables. Statistically, his current resume is ahead of where Ottawa’s Tim Stützle’s was when Stützle signed an eight-year extension worth $8.35 million annually ahead of the 2022-23 season. Stützle broke out in a big way that season, scoring 39 goals and 90 points, but at the time of the extension, his best year had been 22 goals and 58 points.
Meanwhile, Carolina’s Seth Jarvis, who was arguably a closer statistical comparable to Raymond — coming off a 33-goal, 67-point season in 2023-24 — signed an eight-year deal with a $7.9 million AAV ($7.42 million cap hit with deferred money) earlier this summer. Raymond has outscored Jarvis in every season of their careers, so it’s fitting that his contract surpasses Jarvis’, but his number coming in below Stützle’s (particularly before percent-of-cap adjustment) represents good value for the Red Wings.
What’s next for Detroit
The next order of business for the Red Wings is obvious: They need to sign fellow young cornerstone Moritz Seider. After signing Raymond and fellow RFA forward Jonatan Berggren on Monday, Detroit has approximately $8.74 million remaining in cap space for Seider.
On a long-term deal, Seider likely stands to surpass defenseman Brock Faber’s $8.5 million AAV on an eight-year deal signed earlier this summer, but the $8.74 million should still be enough to secure Seider long-term as well.
The big question now: Will Seider’s deal come in above or below captain Dylan Larkin, who is the team’s current highest-paid player at $8.7 million annually?
Red Wings training camp begins Thursday in Traverse City, Mich.
(Photo: Gregory Shamus / Getty Images)
