Alex DeBrincat is heading into a defining summer for the Red Wings, and the price to keep him just got clearer.
Kevin Allen said it plainly on The Sheet Podcast this week. DeBrincat, in his words, is "one of the easiest guys" for Detroit to sign, provided the front office does not lowball him.
"Everybody knows he's gotta be north of 12M," Allen said, framing this as a one-shot negotiation. Make a fair offer and this gets done. Insult him and it does not.
That number matters. DeBrincat is currently carrying a cap hit of $7,875,000, so a deal north of $12 million would represent a real jump for Steve Yzerman's front office to absorb.
The production backs up the ask. DeBrincat put up 85 points last season, 41 goals and 44 assists across 82 games, with a plus-8 rating.
He was money on the power play too, chipping in 15 power play goals and 8 power play assists, plus six game-winning goals. That is a top-six winger doing top-six damage.
Zoom into his last ten games and the pace was still humming: five goals, three assists, eight points, two of those goals coming on the power play.
Horcoff's next move could define the Red Wings' core
Here is the tension nobody is talking around. Detroit finished 41-31-10 last season, good for 92 points, but landed just 16th overall and sixth in its own division.
That is not the return you expect from a roster that includes a 41-goal scorer. The Red Wings limped home too, dropping their final three games including an 8-1 blowout loss at Florida.
So Horcoff is not just negotiating a contract. He is deciding whether DeBrincat is part of the answer or part of a roster that needs a bigger shake-up than one signature can fix.
Locking up a proven scorer feels obvious on paper. But paying north of $12 million to a winger on a team that missed the mark last season is the kind of bet that only looks smart in hindsight, one way or the other.
Allen's read is simple: pay the man, keep the room happy, move on. Whether Detroit's front office sees it the same way is the real story here, and nobody outside the building knows that answer yet.
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Should the Red Wings pay Alex DeBrincat north of $12 million a season?
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