Raymond and Seider to take on greater leadership roles in 2024-25

It’s hard to overstate the importance of Lucas Raymond and Moritz Seider to the Detroit Red Wings. They’re so important that the Detroit Red Wings still haven’t figured out how to re-sign them in mid-August. Detroit needs to get the details right in order to sign contracts that could define the next eight years of the franchise.

Seider and Raymond can also shape the franchise through more than just their cap hits and point totals. They can do it as leaders. That’s the next step for both players, and one they’re expected to take in the near future.

“Those two, the role that they’re going to play on our team, I think it’s going to be a little bit bigger with our leadership,” Red Wings coach Derek Lalonde said on Aug. 7. “That’s something we talked to those two about this summer.”

What exactly does this expanded role entail? Lalonde didn’t go into specifics, but the details are pretty clear to an outsider. On the surface, Raymond is Detroit’s best young forward who had a tendency to take over games last season even when many teammates seemed to be losing hope. Seider, meanwhile, is shouldering a huge defensive workload and often coming out on top with relatively limited help from his teammates. Any coach would be wise to point their teammates in their direction and say, “Follow what this guy does.” The next step is to have them directly inspire their colleagues.

The key to becoming a leader is finding a way to transcend individual success and inspire teammates. Being a leader doesn’t require speeches or jersey letters, but it does require an active voice in mentoring teammates. With the number of young prospects expected to join the team in the coming years, mentoring will only become more important.

For young players like Seider and Raymond, the experience and confidence needed to lead usually doesn’t come at their age. Especially on a team with a beloved captain like Dylan Larkin and a slew of other seasoned NHLers on the roster, the two youngest players in the lineup aren’t usually the ones everyone looks up to by default. But with Raymond and Seider remaining two of the most important players to Detroit’s present and future, it becomes their job to grow into larger leadership roles now so they can be those figureheads in the future.

Seider and Raymond aren’t complete rookies when it comes to leadership. Internationally, Seider and Raymond are held in high regard by their teammates. Raymond wore an “A” for Sweden at the last two IIHF Men’s World Championships. Seider captained Team Germany at the 2018 and 2019 World Junior Championships. There are leadership qualities in both, and now it’s a matter of honing them to be effective at the NHL level.

As for the recognition of that leadership, maybe the day will come soon when Raymond and/or Seider will wear a letter. One day, an alternate captain’s “A” will probably be stitched on their jersey, but is all this leadership talk a sign that that day is coming sooner than expected?

Currently, the “A” previously worn by David Perron is available, with Ben Chiarot and Andrew Copp serving as alternate captains. Michael Rasmussen occasionally wore an “A” when injuries sidelined the others, while Patrick Kane wore it upon his return to Chicago. Those two likely have the best chance to earn Perron’s old A next season, but Seider and Raymond could be heirs to a letter based on the excellence they’ve shown in their careers thus far.

After all, it was Larkin’s fourth season that he earned the alternate captain role. While he was a much more established leadership personality than Raymond and Seider have shown, at least publicly, they are now reaching the point in their careers where they have earned the respect of their teammates and peers, just as he has.

Letter or not, Raymond and Seider’s commitment to taking on larger leadership roles is a testament to how important they are to Detroit’s future. The Red Wings don’t just want them to be the two core pieces of their team, they want them to be the leading tone-setters of the franchise’s next era.