Cap Check: Red Wings own a clean sheet and two rising bills

The number: $0. That's Detroit's dead money: nothing retained, nothing bought out, nothing buried in the minors and nobody on long-term injured reserve. It's also Simon Edvinsson's cap hit, because he doesn't have a contract.

Both zeroes describe this sheet, because the Red Wings have books about as clean as they come and roughly $16 million in room. What they don't have is a permanent general manager to spend it, and the two biggest bills on the desk rise every week they sit unsigned.

My read: this is the easiest sheet in the Atlantic to fix and the most expensive one to leave alone.

Cap sheet: Space today, $15,924,490 with 23 on the roster, per PuckPedia as of Friday. The ceiling is $104 million, and there is no LTIR pool. Retained-salary slots used: 0 of 3. Contracts: 45 of 50.

Three forwards are on injured reserve: Marco Kasper, Mason Appleton and J.T. Compher. Projected deadline room if nothing changes: about $75 million. That figure won't survive Edvinsson's signature, but it shows what a team banks when it starts this far under.

The three contracts that define the sheet

Best value: Moritz Seider, $8.55 million through 2030-31. He had 60 points and a plus-15 in 25:40 a night last season, for 8.2 percent of this year's ceiling and 7.5 percent of next year's. Luke Hughes makes $9 million in New Jersey.

Seider is at 24:59 a night through three games, by our count, and nobody else on the Detroit blue line is within five minutes of him.

Lucas Raymond is the runner-up, with 76 points in 80 games at $8.075 million through 2031-32.

Worst value: J.T. Compher, $5.1 million through 2027-28. He's 31, and he had 28 points in 82 games at minus-13. Emmitt Finnie had 30 points on a $921,667 entry-level hit. It isn't a disaster, just $5.1 million for 28 points with one more season after this one.

The one that decides the future: Dylan Larkin, $8.7 million through 2030-31. On production it's fair, because he had 34 goals and 67 points in 74 games at 8.4 percent of the ceiling.

The complication is everything surrounding it: he asked for a trade in June, he's no longer the captain, and he holds a full no-trade clause through 2027-28.

Detroit's strong card is the clean sheet, with all three retention slots open. At 50 percent, Larkin becomes a $4.35 million center for five seasons, and considerably more teams can fit that. Gord has the list and why it's so short.

Retention on a five-year deal is worth a real asset, and Detroit should charge for it. Larkin had a goal and an assist in 20:41 in his first game back, per NHL data.

The next two summers

2027 is wide open. Detroit has $53.9 million committed to 17 players against a projected $113.5 million ceiling, which leaves $59.6 million of room.

It's also a lot of empty stalls. Alex DeBrincat, Andrew Copp, Justin Faulk and Appleton are unrestricted, and so are both goalies, John Gibson and Daniil Tarasov. Kasper and Albert Johansson are restricted.

Detroit has no NHL goalie signed beyond this season. Trey Augustine, 21, has an entry-level deal through 2028-29 and isn't on the NHL roster yet.

2028 is when the kids get paid. Axel Sandin-Pellikka, Michael Brandsegg-Nygård, Finnie, Nate Danielson and Anton Johansson all finish entry-level deals that summer. None is older than 22, and there's no responsible projection for any of them yet.

Compher, Viktor Arvidsson and Michael Rasmussen expire the same year, which clears $13.3 million to help pay them.

Sign him now / Wait: Alex DeBrincat

Sign him now. The price: seven years at $11.5 million, my projection from this month's Contract Board. That's 10.1 percent of next year's ceiling, up from 7.6 percent today.

He had 41 goals and 85 points last season, and he has four points in three games this season, by our count, which is a small sample pointing the same direction.

The comparables: Drake Batherson got eight years and $86 million in Ottawa, a $10.75 million average, after a 71-point season. Kirill Marchenko is at $12.5 million in Toronto after 67 points. DeBrincat outscored both.

Wait. The deal would pay a goal scorer into his mid-30s, and the back half is where those contracts usually turn. Detroit also doesn't know who its next general manager is, and that person may want a different team.

My call: Sign him now. "My intention is obviously to stay in Detroit," DeBrincat said in September. Talks were on hold at the time because of the general manager search.

A player who wants to stay, negotiating in the one window where only Detroit can offer a seventh year, is the discount. On July 1 the limit elsewhere is six, and 31 other teams can bid.

The one I'd let ride: Copp, and Faulk and Gibson with him. Together that's $18.5 million of expiring veterans, every one of them 32 or older.

Copp played 22:17 and 23:44 in the two games Larkin missed, then 18:24 once Larkin returned, per NHL data. He's a useful $5.625 million center whose minutes depend on someone else's availability.

If Detroit is out of it in March, all three are rentals, and those open retention slots turn each one into a better pick. Faulk cost a first-round pick and more at the last deadline, so getting something back matters.

The one move the numbers say to make

Sign Edvinsson, and pay for the seventh year.

Pagnotta has Detroit at six years and about $8.5 million a season, with the ask near $11 million. My price on Tuesday was seven years at $8 million. Detroit's reported offer is already above it, so mark that one against me.

Here's the revised math. Eleven million is 10.6 percent of today's ceiling for a defenseman who had 25 points, and I can't build that number from any comparable.

Nine million over seven years, I can. It matches Hughes, sits $450,000 above Seider, falls to 7.9 percent of next year's ceiling and leaves roughly $6.9 million in room this season.

It also ends two years after Seider's deal does, so the two biggest blue-line bills never come due together. Edvinsson played 22:21 a night at plus-12 last season. Gord has who's calling.

The caveat

Three games is three games, and the two cap sites are about $880,000 apart on space and one apart on the contract count. The $113.5 million ceiling is a projection the league says could be adjusted, and the Edvinsson figures are a report rather than a term sheet.

Every recommendation here is also addressed to an office with an interim name on the door. Shawn Horcoff has the job until Detroit hires someone, and that hire may evaluate this roster differently.

What I'd watch: The general manager search. DeBrincat's extension waited on it in September, Edvinsson's two sides are about $2.5 million apart, and both prices are set against a ceiling projected to rise $9.5 million in July. A clean sheet is only an asset if someone uses it.