The Detroit Red Wings have signed Filip Zadina to a three-year NHL contract. The average annual value of the contract is $1.825 million. This comes after a flurry of moves in free agency that should improve the Red Wings team for new head coach Derek Lalonde. Zadina has had mixed results in the 4 seasons with the Red Wings big club, but the 74 games played during the previous season are the most that he has played.
This extension suggests that general manager Steve Yzerman has confidence in the 22-year-old right-winger. This confidence can only be a good thing for a young player who was at times frustrated with his lack of goal scoring during the 2021-22 NHL season. This was a season that saw Zadina score 10 goals and add 14 assists for a total of 24 points in 71 games played. This is a career-high for the young winger from Pardubice, Czech Republic.
The Detroit Red Wings are entering a bit of a transition period as the team looks to make the NHL playoffs for the first time since the 2015-2016 NHL season. The Red Wings will soon have to make a decision about extending a new NHL contract to Dylan Larkin earlier this off-season.
Detroit Red Wings Roster Building
At the time of the 2018 NHL entry draft, Zadina was quoted as saying that he would fill the Montreal Canadiens and Ottawa Senators’ nets with pucks after they drafted Jesperi Kotkaniemi and Brady Tkachuk ahead of him. A high-level athlete is famous for using this sort of motivation, either real or contrived. Perhaps a change of head coach from Jeff Blashill to Lalonde will also see Zadina return to the form that had him in the discussion as the number one overall draft pick prior to the 2018 draft.
Other than Lucas Raymond who is coming into his second season in the NHL and Robby Fabbri the right wing is a position of need for the Red Wings. Fabbri will be out of the lineup for the Red Wings for the start of the 2022-23 NHL season after tearing his ACL against the Minnesota Wild on March 10.th. This was the third ACL tear of Fabbri’s career.
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