Raymond and Seider Tasked with...

It’s hard to overstate the importance of Lucas Raymond and Moritz Seider to the Detroit Red Wings. They’re so important, in fact, that the Detroit Red Wings are stuck figuring out how to re-sign them in the middle of August. Signing contracts that could shape the next eight years of the franchise, Detroit has to get the details right.

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

“Those two, the role they'll play on our team, I think will be a little increased role with our leadership, too,” Red Wings coach Derek Lalonde said Aug. 7. “That’s something we talked about with those two this summer.”

What exactly will this increased role entail? Lalonde didn’t go into specifics, but the details are fairly obvious to an outside observer. At a cursory glance, Raymond is Detroit’s best young forward who showed a tendency to take over games last season, even when many teammates seemed to lose all hope. Seider meanwhile takes on Herculean defensive workloads and often comes out on the winning side with rather limited help from his teammates. Any coach would be wise to point teammates in their direction and say “follow what that guy’s doing.” The next step is to get them to directly inspire their peers.

The key to becoming a leader is finding a way to transcend individual success and inspire it from teammates. This doesn’t take speeches or jersey letters to be a leader, but it does take an active voice in guiding teammates. Considering the number of young prospects expected to join the team in the coming years, guidance is only going to be more important.

For young players like Seider and Raymond, the experience and trust required to lead isn’t usually accumulated at their age. Especially on a team with a beloved captain like Dylan Larkin and a whole lot 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 as Raymond and Seider remain two of the most important players to Detroit’s present and future, their task becomes growing into greater leadership roles now so that 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 esteem by their teammates. Raymond wore an "A" for Sweden at the past two IIHF Men's World Championships. Seider captained Team Germany at the World Junior Championships in 2018 and 2019. There are leadersdhip qualities in both, and now it's a matter of sharpening them to be effective at the NHL level.

As far as recognition of that leadership, perhaps there’s a day in the near future that Raymond and/or Seider might wear a letter. Someday, an alternate captain’s “A” probably will be stitched across their jersey, but might all this leadership talk be a sign that day might be sooner than anticipated?

Right now, the “A” formerly worn by David Perron is available, while Ben Chiarot and Andrew Copp were the other alternate captains. Michael Rasmussen wore an “A” on occasion when injuries put the others out of commission, while Patrick Kane wore it for his return to Chicago. Those two probably have the inside track to earning Perron’s old A next season, but Seider and Raymond might be heirs to a letter due to the excellence they’ve shown so far in their careers. '

It was Larkin’s fourth season, after all, that he earned the alternate captaincy. While he was a much more established leadership presence than Raymond and Seider have shown at least publicly, they’re reaching that point in their careers where they’ve earned the respect of their teammates and peers just like he did.

Letter or not, Raymond and Seider’s task to take on greater leadership roles is a testament to how important they are to Detroit’s future. Not only do the Red Wings want them to be two core pieces of their team, but they want them to be the guiding tone-setters of the next era of the franchise.