The Detroit Red Wings announced on Wednesday that Alex DeBrincat had signed a seven-year extension worth $91 million, a $13 million annual commitment that makes him comfortably the highest-paid player on the roster. Jason Gregor doesn’t understand how it happened before something else did.
“My main thought is how can this contract happen, but not an Edvinsson contract?” Gregor said on The Sheet with Jeff Marek.
He has nothing against the player who got paid.
“I like DeBrincat, but he’s a smaller winger compared to a guy who’s going to be a top pair, if he’s not already a top pair, six-foot-six, gigantic mobile defenseman, and he can’t get a contract, because you’d rather go seven years with DeBrincat,” Gregor said. “What the hell are we doing? That’s the part I don’t understand here.”
Why is Simon Edvinsson still unsigned?
Simon Edvinsson reported to training camp without a deal, paying for his own insurance so he could practice while negotiations continued. The offer that eventually arrived was, according to podcast Spittin’ Chiclets’ source, insulting enough to change his position entirely. The 23-year-old has since gone home to Sweden and asked to be traded, and Elliotte Friedman reported he was frustrated with how the club handled the whole thing.
Detroit’s position is that none of that is happening. Interim general manager Shawn Horcoff has said he has zero interest in trading the sixth overall pick from 2021, who has 60 points in 175 games across four seasons.
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The DeBrincat deal is, on its own terms, defensible. The 28-year-old from Farmington Hills put up 41 goals and 85 points last season, becoming the first Red Wing to reach 40 since Marian Hossa in 2008-09 and the first American-born skater in franchise history to hit 80 points. He hasn’t missed a game since arriving in 2023, and he had two goals and an assist the night before the extension was announced.
It’s also heavily protected. The contract carries a full no-trade clause for the first four years and modified protection for the final three, and is front-loaded at $15 million next season.
Head coach Todd McLellan had no doubts about the player.
“Critical is a really good word for him,” McLellan said.
What Detroit still doesn’t have is a captain, a permanent general manager, a resolution on Dylan Larkin‘s trade request, or a signed Edvinsson.
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