The Detroit Red Wings have come to terms on a two year, $4.55M contract extension with restricted free agent Joe Veleno the team announced on Saturday.
Veleno will see a sizeable pay raise coming off the one year, $825,000 contract he signed with Detroit in August of 2023. The 24 year old forward scored 12 goals and dished out 16 assists across 80 games with the winged wheel in 2023-24.
Retaining Veleno at a reasonable $2.275M cap hit for next year is a tidy piece of business by the Red Wings front office. After inking Patrick Kane to a 1 year, $4M contract, and bringing in Stanley Cup champion Vladimir Tarasenko on a 2 year, $9.5M deal meant that Detroit had to carefully consider their next wave of deals to avoid being flush against the salary cap in 2024-25.
Per Puckpedia, Detroit now has $17.6M worth of cap space, with 20 of 23 roster spots filled. While that’s a better position than most teams find themselves in currently (aka the Vegas Golden Knights and their nearly $4M worth of salary they still need to shed before opening night), Yzerman and Co. will likely want to reserve some space for trade deadline acquisitions.
Detroit has the 2nd longest active playoff drought in the NHL, trailing only Buffalo, and spanning the last 8 seasons. Even at that, the last time the Red Wings won a playoff series was all the way back in 2012-13.
With Veleno now aboard to shore up the club’s bottom 6, Detroit can turn its attention to rounding out its final few roster spots before training camp kicks off in a few weeks time.
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