Danny DeKeyser agrees to two-year deal with Red Wings
Danny DeKeyser figures to be a big piece of the Detroit Red Wings' future on the blue line, but talks to get the restricted free agent defenseman under a new contract took much longer than expected. They’re over now, though, as the Wings signed DeKeyser to a new two-year deal worth $4.375 million, according to Aaron Ward of TSN.
Here's how the deal breaks down according to Ward:
DeKeyser, who joined the team as an undrafted free agent out of Western Michigan University during the 2012-13 season, has 76 career games under his belt, including 65 last season. Despite his relative inexperience, DeKeyser played a fairly prominent role for the Red Wings last year, earning top-four minutes for much of the campaign.
After putting up 23 points last season while averaging 21:38 of ice time, DeKeyser is likely to be a key defender for the Red Wings again this season and could see his responsibility grow even more as the year progresses.
The Red Wings are getting a pretty reasonable deal here with DeKeyser making an average of $2.187 million per year. Having only had 76 games of NHL experience after he burned the first year of his entry-level contract on 11 games in 2012-13, there’s still more that DeKeyser will need to show before he can get a long-term deal out of an organization like Detroit.
Having already shown he can play top-four quality defense at the NHL level, DeKeyser could be headed for a much bigger payday on his next contract. Considering he missed part of last season with an injury, a short-term bridge deal always seemed to be the most likely outcome of the negotiations.
All that’s left for the Red Wings now ahead of the season is to find out what’s next with free agent forward Daniel Alfredsson, who recently had a setback in his offseason training. He is not expected to be at training camp.
As important a player as Alfredsson was to the team last season, one could argue that DeKeyser's new contract should have been the bigger priority.
Now that it's done, the Red Wings can breathe easy in having their promising young rearguard ready to participate in camp and DeKeyser can start focusing on building off of his impressive first full-time season in the NHL.
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