With a month of the 2024-25 NHL season in the books, all 32 teams have had a chance to get a feel for their weaknesses and strengths. With the Thanksgiving benchmark quickly approaching, it’s only a matter of time before some teams start to feel pressure to make a change.
The Detroit Red Wings have already made a trade this season. On October 30, they traded defenseman Olli Määttä to the Utah Hockey Club in exchange for a third round pick in the 2025 draft. While this relatively minor move was made to clear cap space as well as a roster spot, it goes to show that teams are always in communication with each other and they are already sizing up their rosters.
With that in mind, here are a few players the Red Wings’ front office might consider looking at as they try to give their team a boost.
(D) Marcus Pettersson
The Pittsburgh Penguins have tried to fend off Father Time for a couple years now, but it appears their efforts were in vain. Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and Kris Letang are all in the twilight of their careers, and they simply are not surrounded by enough talent to compensate for it. Penguins general manager Kyle Dubas tried to extend the franchise’s window to compete, but it now seems pretty clear that the next step is to invest in the future.
The Penguins have a number of players that will be free agents at the end of this season. One of them is Marcus Pettersson, a 28-year-old defender who has been with the Penguins since December of 2018.
Listed at 6-foot-5, 174 pounds, Pettersson is a tall, lanky defender with long reach and the ability to keep play moving in the right direction. A former second round pick of the Anaheim Ducks back in 2014, he has appeared in 460 regular season games. He recorded several career-high totals last season as he was (and still is) primarily paired with Erik Karlsson on the Penguins’ 1A/1B defense pairing.
Pettersson’s numbers at five-on-five have been positive since joining the Penguins. Pittsburgh generally possesses the puck well while he is on the ice, and that is an attribute the Red Wings could use more of on their blue line. He could be a viable partner for Moritz Seider, which would allow Simon Edvinsson to slide back down and take control of the team’s second pairing. Even though the second pairing could use an upgrade on the right side, Pettersson could provide enough of an improvement on the left side that it ultimately doesn’t matter.
Related: Red Wings Notebook: 12 Thoughts on Seider & Edvinsson, Trade Market & More
Pettersson carries a cap hit of $4.025 million and the Red Wings have around $2.5 million of cap space to play with. The Penguins would probably be looking for a package of prospects, young players, and draft picks in exchange for Pettersson’s services. Jonatan Berggren might be of interest to them as they look to inject their offense with youth.
(D) Dante Fabbro
If I told you a 26-year-old, right-handed defenseman with over 300 games of NHL experience was available for cheap (and possibly even free), you’d at least be interested to hear more, right?
That’s the thinking with Columbus Blue Jackets defenseman Dante Fabbro. The Nashville Predators’ top selection in the 2016 draft, the British Columbia-native has featured in parts of seven seasons in Nashville before he was waived late last week and then claimed by the Blue Jackets.
In his career-best season, the 2021-22 campaign, Fabbro averaged over 19 minutes a night in ice-time, and he was a plus-13 while producing 24 points in 66 games. While he isn’t a high-end offensive defenseman, he has flashed the ability to be a solid puck-moving defenseman in the NHL throughout his career. To that point, he posted negative possession numbers in just one of the seven seasons he has played in.
Considering the Predators were willing to risk losing Fabbro on waivers, there has to be some drawbacks, right? He has been prone to making high-risk plays throughout his career – as is usually the case with defenders that try to move the puck like he does. This often results in turnovers, and those turnovers sometimes result in goals-against. He’s the type of player you celebrate when he tries something and it works, but then you let out an all-too-familiar groan when he tries the same thing and it backfires.
The Red Wings should probably focus their efforts on finding a sturdier addition to the right side of their blue line, but they could do worse than taking a chance on Fabbro. He is still at an age where his game could take a step forward, and if the Blue Jackets decide he isn’t a fit on their blue line, he is a definite buy-low candidate. With the Red Wings needing a spark, this is the type of low-cost move they should be investigating.
(C/RW) Trent Frederic
The Boston Bruins find themselves stuck in neutral through the first month of the season. Like the Red Wings, they may need to shake things up in order to get themselves on the right track.
One Bruins player that has already come up in trade rumors is Trent Frederic, a scrappy forward that has begun the season with an uncharacteristic whimper. The St. Louis-native turns 27 in February and is in the final year of his contract. With unrestricted free agency looming in the offseason, the Bruins may look at his slow start as a signal to move him rather than run the risk of losing him in the offseason for nothing in return.
Frederic plays a physical brand of hockey and can be quite effective in limited minutes. Last season, he notched a career-high 18 goals and 40 points while averaging just 13:45 in ice-time. This should appeal to the Red Wings because their bottom six, specifically their third line, could use a jolt. Their bottom six hasn’t been bad per se, but its overall ineffectiveness has caused a bit of an overreliance on the team’s top six.
Frederic wouldn’t fix the bottom six all by himself, but he would provide the Red Wings’ lineup with a different look. He had 204 hits last season and already has 49 in 16 games this season. He could be the physical presence the Red Wings’ lineup currently lacks.
Now it’s your turn! What are the Red Wings’ biggest needs and who would you acquire to address them? Let us know in the comments section below!
