NHL Rumors: Red Wings Open To Big Retention In Copp Trade

The Detroit Red Wings appear like they want to move on from Andrew Copp this offseason. He's a decent third line center, but is overpaid on the Red Wings.

Copp has a cap hit of $5.625 million AAV for two more years, and with Dylan Larkin, Marco Kasper, J.T. Compher, and Drew Rasmussen, isn't a full time option at center anymore. Copp is a good faceoff man and an option a number of teams would like as their third line center since he is also good defensively and can produce.

Copp finished this season with 10 goals and 23 points in 56 games and averaged 14:42 of ice time per game. The veteran played 18:09 and 16:16 per game in his first two seasons with the Red Wings, so his role is drastically reducing as new faces are brought in.

Detroit has over $21 million in cap space to spend this offseason and Steve Yzerman should be feeling the heat in terms of what he has to do to get this team into the playoffs. According to Nick Kypreos, the Red Wings could be open to retaining a large amount of Copp's contract for the final two years of his deal in a trade. This would free up a spot and the team has more than enough cap space to do so, likely getting a mid-round pick back in return with that amount of cap retention.

A player like Copp at a cap hit of less than $3 million AAV for two seasons is something a lot of contenders will be interested in, especially if they are a little weaker down the middle or need a better defensive forward with experience. It seems like a lot is going down ahead of the draft, but also much more will happen right before free agency opens through to a couple of weeks from now. Copp is likely to be traded, but to which team remains a mystery for now.