Wings Squeeze In DeKeyser

The Detroit Red Wings have avoided one of their arbitration hearings, as Danny DeKeyser and the team agreed upon a long-term contract, which will keep the all-around defender in the Motor City for the next six seasons.

In total, it was a 6-year, $30 million deal for DeKeyser, who has now played in four seasons for Detroit, coming out of the NCAA ranks in the 2013 season and right into the lineup.

In the 2016 season, the 26-year old finished with 8 goals and 20 points in 78 games, setting a new career-high in goals and rounding out quite nicely at both ends of the ice.

DeKeyser has seen a highs of 31 points already in his career and if all were to go well, there is no reason he couldn't get back up into that bracket again in the coming year.  Since my projections are in 5-point segments, I would peg him early in the 30-point range to start.

Now, things are not looking very rosy for the Red Wings and their crease situation, given that they have Petr Mrazek heading to arbitration and their 23-man roster (in colour) below is coming in with $112,000 in cap space.  The Red Wings may get some relief in the LTIR department, depending on Johan Franzen's situation, but right now, where he is isn't certain at all either.

Forwards	Cap	Defense	Cap	Goalies	Cap
Henrik Zetterberg	6.083	Mike Green	6.000	Jimmy Howard	5.292
Frans Nielsen	5.250	Danny DeKeyser	5.000
Gustav Nyquist	4.750	Niklas Kronwall	4.750
Justin Abdelkader	4.250
Tomas Tatar	2.750
Thomas Vanek	2.600
Dylan Larkin	0.925
Johan Franzen	3.955	Jonathan Ericsson	4.250
Darren Helm	3.850	Brendan Smith	2.750
Riley Sheahan	2.075	Alexey Marchenko	1.450
Joe Vitale	1.117
Drew Miller	1.025
Tomas Jurco	0.900
Luke Glendening	0.628
		Brian Lashoff	0.650	Jared Coreau	0.613
Evgeny Svechnikov	0.894	Dan Renouf	0.768	Jake Paterson	0.628
Dylan Sadowy	0.881	Filip Hronek	0.726	Edward Pasquale	0.575
Anthony Mantha	0.863	Robbie Russo	0.680
Teemu Pulkkinen	0.813	Vili Saarijarvi	0.662
Steve Ott	0.800	Joe Hicketts	0.610
Axel Holmstrom	0.687	Nick Jensen	0.588
Dominic Turgeon	0.662
Eric Tangradi	0.650
Zach Nastasiuk	0.648
Tyler Bertuzzi	0.645
Martin Frk	0.639
Matt Lorito	0.638
Andreas Athanasiou	0.628
Tomas Nosek	0.613
Ben Street	0.600
Mitchell Callahan	0.600

Pool worthy, non-pool roster players, assumed roster fill-ins,  injured/retired cap hits, in the system