Red Wings Lucas Raymond is demanding a major salary increase

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Daniel Lucente
September 13, 2024 (2:37 PM)

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An NHL insider has revealed that Red Wings forward Lucas Raymond is looking for a massive payday from his team, with a salary of more than $8 million AAV.

In his latest podcast, Sportsnet's Elliotte Friedman, arguably the best-connected NHL insider, shed some light on what has been going on with the contract status of the unsigned restricted free agent of the Detroit Red Wings, Lucas Raymond,

Elliotte Friedman mentioned that the camp of Lucas Raymond could be considering a range of comparable deals, which suggests conflicting contract benchmarks.

"Raymond, I had mentioned the [Seth] Jarvis contract [eight years, $63.2 million] as a comparable. Jarvis is 7.9 [million] in actual cash, 7.4 [million] with the deferred money and the AAV. Because they both have one 30-goal season, Jarvis and Raymond, I thought it was perfect, and I had an agent tell me, I guarantee you that you are wrong in terms of what Raymond's people-his agent is JP Berry-are looking for. I said, 'Oh yeah, why do you think I'm wrong?' And they said, 'There's other players like [Tim] Stutzle, who's at a higher number [eight years, $66.8 million] than Seth Jarvis is. If you're an agent, you're going to pick the highest possible comparable, and, in this case, I think it's Stutzle."

- Elliotte Friedman

He also said some agents have indicated to him that teams are trying to avoid using the Ottawa Senators' Tim Stutzle contract as a comparable. As the saying goes, the Stutzle deal was unique to the Senators' situation, and several teams, maybe including Red Wings GM Steve Yzerman, feel the contract was an anomaly and too inflated to use for comparables.

Friedman also noted a logistical issue that will affect the situation of Lucas Raymond, with how difficult it is to bring European players who have just been signed to training camp.�

"The other thing I've heard is I've heard some of these players who are coming in from Europe who don't have contracts yet, once they're signing, I've heard the visas are taking a long time. I don't know what you can do there. Ultimately, the negotiation's gotta come first, but someone was telling me it's taken a lot longer than people were hoping."

- Elliotte Friedman

While it's not a wrinkle that would seem to have much bearing on the terms that might be in his respective deal, it is another layer that will be factored in as Lucas Raymond continues negotiating.

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