Previewing the 2024-25 Detroit Red Wings defense: Why Shayne Gostisbehere needs to stay

Steve Yzerman has some juggling to do in figuring out the Detroit Red Wings' defense corps next season.

Simon Edvinsson, the No. 6 pick in 2021, used his mid-March call-up to show, once and for all, he belongs in the lineup on a regular basis. That's one new addition to next season's opening night roster. There's also Albert Johansson, a 2019 second-round pick whom the Wings have spent several years developing and is no longer exempt from waivers. That makes two additions.

The Wings already have five players from this past season's defense under contract through next season, and at some point restricted free agent Moritz Seider will make that six.

That adds up to eight defensemen. Carrying that many may not be feasible, depending on what Yzerman does with the goaltending situation. If the team opts to carry three goalies again, then carrying eight defensemen would limit the forward group to 12 — one below the typical number teams like to employ.

Further complicating the equation is Shayne Gostisbehere, a pending unrestricted free agent who the Wings would like to re-sign. They don't have anyone else on defense quite like him. In the last week of the season, Gostisbehere assisted on Dylan Larkin's overtime goal in Toronto, on the three goals the Wings scored to rally to beat Montreal at home and on David Perron's tying goal with 3.8 seconds on the clock in Montreal in the finale.

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Gostisbehere led Wings defensemen with 56 points in 81 games — fourth in points on the team — and his 29 power-play points ranked first.

It's easy to see why Yzerman gave an unequivocal "absolutely" when asked about the need to figure out a way to keep Gostisbehere.

"He was very good on the power play," Yzerman said at his end-of-season news conference April 19. "More of an offensive guy. A different player that adds to the depth of our defensive core, or complete it. You need good defenders but you also have to have some defense that generates offense and play on the power play, and he was good at that. So yeah, it’s something I would strongly consider. Contract aside, it’s making all this fit.

"We’re probably comfortable carrying eight defensemen, although we were very lucky we didn’t have any significant injuries on the blue line. I’d like to if we can figure out a way to do it. He’s a valuable player for how we’re set up on the back end."

That setup is led by Seider and last season was fortified by a handful of veterans in Ben Chiarot (two more years at $4.75 million per), Justin Holl (two more years at $3.4 million), Jake Walman (two more years at $3.4 million), Olli Määttä (one more year at $3 million) and Jeff Petry (one more year at $2.34 million), along with Gostisbehere, who came in last summer on a one-year, $4.13 million deal.

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The coaching staff only used Holl in 38 games, and that, along with his contract, will make for a tough trade scenario. Määttä might be the easiest to move — he plays a steady, simple game, and has an appealing contract. Määttä had good chemistry with Gostisbehere, but if the Wings want to re-sign Gostisbehere, someone has to go, and the coaching staff favored pairing Petry with Edvinsson after the latter was called up in March.

Chiarot is a mainstay in the top four, and was partnered with Seider down the stretch. Walman had a down year and finished as a healthy scratch but has mostly been a good partner when playing with Seider.

Johansson, 23, has spent the past two seasons developing with the Grand Rapids Griffins after two full seasons in his native Sweden's top league. Whether he can translate that success to the NHL level will, for starters, be determined during exhibition season, but he'll be on the roster because he can't be sent to the minors any more without being exposed on waivers.

The Wings were fortunate last season in how healthy all seven of their defensemen remained: Walman missed 11 games because of injury, but otherwise there were few absences. Gostisbehere's only absence was in early November, a one-game benching to prod him to focus more on the defensive side of his game.

Defensive prowess isn't why teams sign Gostisbehere, though: He has made an NHL career (367 points in 619 games) out of what he can do with the puck. He delivered on that with the Wings, exceeding the production lost when Yzerman traded Filip Hronek at the 2023 trade deadline. Gostisbehere's impact especially showed on the power play, which improved to a 23.1% conversion rate, from 21.1% in 2022-23.

Gostisbehere was part of Yzerman's improvement plan last summer, and showed why the Wings would be well-served to figure out how to extend the relationship.

Contact Helene St. James at hstjames@freepress.com. Follow her @helenestjames.

Read more on the Detroit Red Wings and sign up for our Red Wings newsletter. Her latest book, “On the Clock: Behind the Scenes with the Detroit Red Wings at the NHL Draft,” is available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Triumph Books. Personalized copies available via her e-mail.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Keeping Shayne Gostisbehere key to Detroit Red Wings defense plans