from Jeff Gordon of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch,
The NHL hopes to relaunch later this summer with 24 teams in an expanded playoff bracket. That leaves out the Detroit Red Wings. Ottawa Senators, New Jersey Devils, Buffalo Sabres, San Jose Sharks, Los Angeles Kings and Anaheim Ducks.
Those teams may not play again for several months, since the NHL will likely push back the start of the 2020-21 season due to the ongoing health crisis.
So what went wrong with the Subterranean Seven? Let’s take a look:
Red Wings: One of the few bright spots this season was former Blues forward Robby Fabbri, who made the most of his ice time after arriving in an early-season trade. He scored 14 goals and added 17 assists in 52 games, albeit with a minus-29 rating. Fabbri could fit into the promising nucleus featuring Dylan Larkin, Anthony Mantha, Filip Hronek, Tyler Bertuzzi, Filip Zadina and Moritz Seider. But general manager Steve Yzerman heads into Year 2 of his regime with lots of dead payroll: Henrik Zetterberg ($6.083 million on long-term injured reserve next season), Frans Nielsen ($5.25 million salary cap hit through 2022), Danny DeKeyser ($5 million through ’22), Justin Abdelkader ($4.25 million through ’23) and Darren Helm ($3.85 million next season). Whew! Needless to say the Red Wings will need to draft well during the next few years while getting out from under that money.
the other six teams....
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