Alex DeBrincat Reiterates Desire To Re-Sign In Detroit

No. 1 center and team captain Dylan Larkin requested a trade during the offseason, and could still be dealt. Longtime GM Steve Yzerman is no longer leading the team’s hockey operations department, and the Red Wings are still engaged in their GM search even as training camp inches closer.

It’s a time of tremendous uncertainty for the Red Wings, and the pressures the organization faces are only compounded by the team’s decade-long playoff drought. But what DeBrincat communicated yesterday is his hope to be a source of stability and certainty for the franchise as they navigate these fresh challenges.

While DeBrincat expressing a clear desire to extend with the team won’t answer the existential questions the Red Wings’ leadership has reckoned with this summer, any early DeBrincat extension would provide a helpful shot in the arm for a Red Wings franchise that has endured a difficult 2026.

DeBrincat is arguably Detroit’s best offensive player, having led the team in scoring last season with 41 goals and 85 points in 82 games. That marked the third time in DeBrincat’s career that he scored at least 40 goals, and the first time he did so in Detroit. The 5’8″ winger is one of the game’s more consistent goal scorers, and has been one of Detroit’s top scorers since joining the team from the Ottawa Senators in a summer 2022 trade.

But while DeBrincat has clearly demonstrated a desire to sign an extension in Detroit and be a key leader for the club moving forward, the path to a new contract is unlikely to be 100 percent smooth. The landscape of player compensation across the NHL is changing rapidly, and the price tags attached to players are becoming increasingly unrecognizable compared to where they were just one or two years ago.

Seeing as he will be a 29-year-old free agent, DeBrincat’s next contract will almost certainly be the most important, and lucrative, one of his career. Unless he surprises and settles for a short-term deal, the contract will take him into his mid-thirties, with a maximum-term seven-year deal stretching until his age-36 season. His earning potential after his next contract will be very minor, meaning this upcoming deal is DeBrincat’s best chance to maximize the financial value created by what remains of his playing career.

Unfortunately for the Red Wings, what “maximum value,” or even just “fair value,” means for DeBrincat has changed dramatically this summer. A year ago, DeBrincat would almost certainly have expected a modest raise on his next deal over his current $7.875MM cap hit, likely in the range of around $10MM AAV, if not less. But the rapidly rising upper limit of the salary cap has totally changed the price ranges associated with star players.

Young, ascending talents have seen their costs balloon, with multiple top RFAs (Leo Carlsson and Macklin Celebrini) setting NHL records for average compensation. That rising tide has extended to veteran players as well. Colorado Avalanche star Cale Makar, 27, is making $20.4MM AAV on his eight-year extension, while Minnesota Wild star Kirill Kaprizov is earning a $17MM AAV on his own massive extension.

Few would argue that DeBrincat belongs at the level of either Kaprizov or Makar. But even so, his price tag has almost certainly skyrocketed. While he may have hoped for $10MM at most a year ago, he can now reasonably argue for well over that. If DeBrincat is valued at even 75% of what Kaprizov is worth, that comes out to a $12.75MM cap hit. AFP Analytics projects a seven-year DeBrincat extension to carry a cap hit just north of $12MM.

The rising cap means Detroit should have no issue fitting that kind of cap hit for DeBrincat onto their books. Their $8.075MM AAV extension for star Lucas Raymond will provide the club with a substantial amount of surplus value, and the savings they receive from having him (and $8.55MM AAV No. 1 defenseman Moritz Seider) locked into long-term extensions means they will have enough flexibility to absorb a high cap hit for DeBrincat.

Their ability to afford DeBrincat will also improve after Larkin’s $8.7MM cap hit is removed from their books, though the team is almost certainly hoping whatever player(s) they receive in return will be talented and valuable enough to eat into some of that vacated cap space.

In any case, the key question for the Red Wings will be how much leverage they’ll look to derive from DeBrincat’s clear desire to remain in Detroit. They could conceivably receive a hometown discount from the player, but they have to be careful not to press too hard. As mentioned earlier, DeBrincat’s next deal is his best chance to receive a lucrative maximum-term contract. Like any player who prefers to re-sign rather than test the open market, he’ll still want to be valued fairly.

Finding the right balance between appropriately compensating their star winger, while also trying to negotiate a hometown discount, will be a fascinating challenge for the Red Wings – and their new GM – to have to navigate.