- Bob Duff says a DeBrincat trade or free-agent exit is unlikely if Detroit pays market value
- The winger is a year from unrestricted free agency on a $7.875M cap hit
- Read below for DeBrincat’s own words on his Red Wings future
Detroit has spent July watching people leave. Alex DeBrincat does not look like the next one.
Bob Duff of Detroit Hockey Now wrote this week that a DeBrincat exit is unlikely, and his reasoning is short. Pay the winger what he is worth and he stays put.
DeBrincat said the same thing himself in April. A reporter asked him whether Detroit, with his family nearby, was a place he had no interest in leaving.
“Yeah, absolutely. I love it here. This is my home. I’ve loved every bit of playing here. I think this is definitely a team I want to be a part of for a long time, and I think everyone knows that.”
Catch the full season-ending media session where he said it:
He did leave one door open in that same answer. “It’s a business, so we’ll see what they want to do,” DeBrincat said.
Plenty has moved since. Patrick Kane signed back in Chicago and Steve Yzerman was out as general manager on July 15.
Dylan Larkin’s trade request is still sitting there unresolved.
That churn is what put DeBrincat back in the rumor column. Dave Pagnotta reported last month that several clubs, the Blackhawks included, had called Detroit to ask about him.
Trading him would be an odd way to fix a team that already cannot score enough. No Red Wing has more goals than DeBrincat since he arrived in 2023, and he is coming off the best year of his career.
| Season | GP | G | A | P |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023-24 | 82 | 27 | 40 | 67 |
| 2024-25 | 82 | 39 | 31 | 70 |
| 2025-26 | 82 | 41 | 44 | 85 |
Market value is the tricky part. Leo Carlsson pushed the top of the forward scale to $18 million a year, then Macklin Celebrini reset it again at $18.8 million this week, and DeBrincat is playing out the final season of a deal that pays him $7.875 million.
The Farmington Hills native turns 29 in December and hits unrestricted free agency next July. Detroit still has no permanent general manager, and whoever takes the chair inherits the DeBrincat extension as the first real piece of business.
