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This week we wrap up the Anthony Mantha conversation, try to improve the Red Wing's buy spending the remaining cap space, and review NHL 21.

Anthony Mantha has a new contract! 

The contract terms between Anthony Mantha and the Detroit Red Wings is for 4 Year at $5.7 AAV. Quite a discount on the $7M and 7 years it was reported Mantha was after. It also came at a discount to league average for a selection of comparable players.

All of my worries were taken care of: Was not too long, not too short, pretty good AAV and if there are injury problems in the future, the contract breaks right at the timetable for long-term playoff contention. 

This contract also says more about Yzerman’s abilities to measure more than one variable. Instead of a player’s abilities being the deciding factor for term and AAV, even Mantha was discussing how it made sense for his contract length not to overlap with Larkin. 

Long story short, this is a great contract from both the Red Wings’ perspective and a good contract from Anthony Mantha’s perspective. What more could you ask for?

This week’s ‘Be the GM’ focuses on Mantha

Lineup Projections from Jesse L

Check out the latest stylings from the blogger extraordinaire, Jesse L. This week Jesse took a DEEP deeeeep dive into the Red Wings potential 2021 roster and who should be in the starting lineups.

Let us know what you think in the comments!

Dmytro Timashov is Exploring Options

In Steve Yzerman’s latest press conference, Yzerman divulged that Dmytro Timashov is exploring his options. Essentially there isn’t a lot of information here, but we can speculate that Dmytro Timashov isn’t too confident that he’s going to be able to develop and show off his talents with the NHL season yet to begin.

Red Wings Salary Cap Space

You get to pick two things that Yzerman will do with the remaining funds

“There are a lot of players still on the free-agent market. We have a lot of bodies right now. I do think there’s room potentially to add, and I would consider it as we go along, or when we get closer to knowing when we’re going to start. As far as the trade market… it’s pretty quiet around the league. Certainly, we’d be open to listening.”

Matt is taking:

Sign Anthony Duclair closer to the start of the season for cheap or Illya Kovalchuk as trade bait.

Vancouver still needs to sign Elias Pettersson and while rumors had been swirling of Brock Boeser being on the market I’m eyeing Loui Eriksson.  Eriksson may be able to fetch a 1st round pick and more (maybe even swindle another 2022 pick considering this is a 2-year deal). 

The extra assets have to come along for the ride considering the Eriksson eats at your cap for two years and would end up being the second-highest-paid player on the team at $6M.

Mike is taking:

Sign Mikael Granlund and cut a year off of the growth timetable by trading for Patrick Kane. 

In what could be compared to the Pistons trading for Allen Iverson and a huge waste of assets, time and money, Mike sees this as a definite upgrade for the team and would spend 1st round picks to bring over the Superstar American Forward at $10M per season for the next 3 years.

Red Wings Rant Wrap-Up

We also plug in some NHL 21 thoughts and discuss thoughts on home ownership and how many trips to Home Depot are acceptable for a single day.

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