Last month was busy with buyouts. Cam Atkinson, Adam Boqvist, Jack Campbell, Nate Schmidt, Jeff Skinner, and Ryan Suter were all released, became UFAs, and quickly secured new deals for the season.
Many anticipated that Red Wings defenseman Justin Holl might join that list. Holl, 32, signed a three-year, $10.2M contract with Detroit in free agency last summer after serving as a reliable top-four defenseman for the Maple Leafs over the past four seasons.
However, Red Wings head coach Derek Lalonde rarely used him as an NHL regular last season, much less one with a $3.4M cap hit. Holl was healthy for most of the season but was scratched for over half of it, playing in only 38 games. In those games, he tallied five assists, a +8 rating, and 22 PIMs while averaging 15:05 on ice time, his lowest since a brief stint in Toronto in 2018-19.
Detroit had plenty of cap space this summer, and many expected general manager Steve Yzerman to use it. The team still needs new deals for key RFAs Lucas Raymond and Moritz Seider, and they were expected to be very active in the UFA market to end their eight-year playoff drought in 2025.
That didn’t quite happen. Their most notable addition was two-time Stanley Cup champion winger Vladimir Tarasenko, essentially replacing David Perron, who left for the Senators. They retained Patrick Kane on a one-year, $6.5M deal and swapped James Reimer for Cam Talbot in goal, but also traded top-pair defenseman Jake Walman to the Sharks in a cap-dump move. As a result, their roster arguably regressed from last year’s, which narrowly missed the second wild-card spot in the East due to a tiebreaker with the Capitals.
Some were puzzled when Yzerman included a second-round pick to offload Walman, who was effective alongside Seider at even strength for the past two seasons, rather than increase cap space by buying out Holl. With two years left on Holl’s contract, a buyout would have resulted in a $1.13M dead cap hit for the next four seasons, which the team likely wanted to avoid as they aim for contention, according to The Athletic’s Max Bultman.
Lalonde’s limited use of Holl was justified. Despite being given more favorable conditions than in Toronto, Holl produced the worst possession metrics of his career, controlling just 42.6% of expected goals, compared to over 50% in his four seasons with the Leafs.
With Walman gone and more pressure on young players like Simon Edvinsson to step up, Holl might be relied upon more as an insurance policy. Bultman notes that Yzerman doesn’t seem to view Holl as a lost cause, at least for now, given the multi-year, eight-figure contract signed just 12 months ago.
However, if Holl repeats last year’s performance, Detroit might consider a buyout more seriously for the final season of his contract next June. This would still result in a $1.13M dead cap charge, but only for the following two seasons, freeing up over $2M for free agency in 2025. By then, the team will have their core players secured with long-term deals, and significant cap hits from Ville Husso, Olli Maatta, and Jeff Petry will come off the books.
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