Redoing the Red Wings’ 2019 Draft Class

Obviously, re-drafts are inherently unfair due to the power of hindsight. I’m not making this article to laugh at the Red Wings because they honestly have done quite well with their early picks in recent history. I mostly want to do a bit of a fantasy lineup for the Red Wings throughout this process, and to see if there are any patterns worth watching, both in how Detroit has typically drafted, and in what type of players would have been worth taking a swing on. 

Lastly, I’m not going to just pick the seven best players willy-nilly and pretend that it is a realistic re-draft. No fair tennis without a net. Here are the rules I’ll be using. Any first round selection must be a player who was picked within the next five picks on draft day, to show that it was someone the team could have realistically considered. The wiggle-room will jump to 10 picks for round two, to a full round in round three, and then I’ll do a free-for-all after that. Let’s have some fun!

6th Overall – Moritz Seider, RD

Original pick – Moritz Seider

We’re starting off with a banger of a draft pick here in Moritz Seider. Seider was a surprise pick back in the 2019 Draft, with even his biggest supporters in the public scouting sphere thinking it was just a little bit of a stretch. The Red Wings made a brilliant call taking him sixth overall, and have been reaping the benefits ever since. Seider is a no-doubt number one defender, with possibly the most complete two-way package of any defender in the NHL right now. 

We just missed Matt Boldy with my rules, as he went six picks later. Boldy would have made me think for a moment, as a two-way winger with size who just scored 40 goals, but in the end I still would have comfortably landed on Seider. I do think there’s a very reasonable argument that Seider would go first overall in a full re-draft of the 2019 Draft, though Jack Hughes could give him a run for it given his position. 

35th Overall – Jackson LaCombe, LD

Original Pick – Antti Tuomisto

Jackson LaCombe has established himself as a high-end defender in the league, even shutting down Connor McDavid in the playoffs last year after the Anaheim Ducks broke their playoff drought. The Red Wings drafted Antti Tuomisto instead, a defender who is the highest drafted player from the 2019 class to have not played a single NHL game. Adding LaCombe and Seider with back-to-back picks immediately gives this fantasy team an elite top-pairing to build around.

54th Overall – Brett Leason, RW

Original Pick – Robert Mastrosimone

Brett Leason has been a decent depth winger for the past few seasons, and he is the best pick here. Leason has split his career so far between the Ducks and the Washington Capitals, and might top out as organizational depth as a 13th forward, but that is more than Detroit got out of their original selection here in Robert Mastrosimone. 

60th Overall – Albert Johansson, LD

Original Pick – Albert Johansson

Another pick staying the same here, as nobody stands out particularly in this range, and I like Johansson’s ultimate potential more than someone like Zac Jones. Johansson is a decent pick here, getting a player who projects to have a long NHL career near the end of the second round, even if he is likely to be best cast as a sixth or seventh defender on a winning team.

66th Overall – Aliaksei Protas, C/LW

Original Pick – Albin Grewe

This selection was actually a bit of a toss up between Pavel Dorofeyev and Aliaksei Protas. In the end, I went with the towering Protas. He has scored 55 goals and 118 points over the past two seasons with Washington as a 6-foot-6 forward and one of the NHL’s largest players. Dorofeyev’s goal totals are impressive, but I’m not sure I would want to count on him to drive offense as he has spent a lot of time with Mitch Marner and Jack Eichel, some of the NHL’s very best playmakers. 

97th Overall – Mattias Maccelli, LW

Original Pick – Ethan Phillips

The Red Wings continue to add to their embarrassment of riches in this draft with Mattias Maccelli. While he might not be the most reliable or competitive player, he is a winger capable of scoring 40-60 points and would be a dream in Detroit’s middle-six right now. Maccelli is basically the player that I expected Jonathan Berggren to become. 

128th Overall – Arseny Gritsyuk, RW

Original Pick – Cooper Moore

After lighting up the KHL for four seasons, Arseny Gritsyuk adapted well to the NHL last season and could be a top-six scorer for New Jersey in the near future. Gritsyuk is a super competitive winger who hounds puck carriers and wins a ton of 50/50 battles for the puck in space. He scored over 30 points last season, but I think that he will continue to adapt to the pace of the NHL and could become a good second line winger. 

159th Overall – Elmer Soderblom, RW

Original Pick – Elmer Soderblom

The pickings are getting especially slim at this point in the 2019 Draft, so I have the Red Wings selecting Elmer Soderblom again. While he has already left the team, I do think that his game has the kind of potential that I’d be willing to take a chance on him again and hope that a different development environment and a greater opportunity will let him really blossom.

177th Overall – Rafael Harvey-Pinard, LW

Original Pick – Gustav Berglund

190th Overall – Juuso Parssinen, C

Original Pick – Kirill Tyutyayev

191st Overall – Dustin Wolf, G

Original Pick – Carter Gylander

Okay, you didn’t think I was going to miss this one right? I did my best to fill out the other picks with players who could become depth pieces in the organization, but I earmarked this final spot early on in this process. Dustin Wolf was drafted 214th overall, and is an exception to the rule that NHL goaltenders need to be exceptionally tall. Wolf’s athleticism and meticulous focus have made him a formidable goaltender in the NHL, with the potential to become the next Juuse Saros. 

Fantasy Red Wings Re-Draft Roster

Maccelli – Protas – Leason
Harvey-Pinard – Parssinen – Gritsyuk
XXX – XXX – Soderblom
XXX – XXX – XXX

LaCombe – Seider
Johansson – XXX
XXX – XXX

Wolf
XXX

This is not a bad start to a roster here. We’ve got a lot of forwards who will hopefully be in the bottom half of the lineup after a couple more re-drafts, but our defensive group and goaltending are off to a really nice start. We are really hurting down the middle, with Protas being the only player I hope will be in the top six by the end of this process. LaCombe and Seider gives this team a top pairing that could be reliably trotted out for 25+ minutes a night and pitch in on each power play unit as well.

Certainly nothing special just yet, but I have hope that this team will continue developing through the coming drafts. I just have to hope that there are one or two top-six centres available in the next few years.

What do you think of this early roster? Would you have made any different re-draft choices? Sound off in the comment section below!