The Detroit Red Wings have spent the first half of the 2023-24 season flirting with playoff contention. Because of this, a lot of focus has been placed on the performance of the players on the NHL roster. This, of course, means that less attention has been placed on the Red Wings’ many prospects playing all over the world – which is curious considering the team is still in the building phase of their competitive cycle.
Some prospects are easier to track than others. The best prospects pop up throughout social media as they make highlight plays and play in big roles for their teams. Others, for one reason or another, fade into the background and really only pop up in large-scale prospect articles like this one.
But as we all know, when it comes to prospect pools, quality and quantity are both important, and the players that fall into each category shift as each year passes. That’s why we re-rank the Red Wings’ top-25 prospects every six months or so.
Without further ado, here are the Red Wings’ top-25 prospects midway through the 2023-24 season.
25. (D) Jared McIsaac – 2018, 36th Overall
2023-24 Stats: Grand Rapids Griffins (AHL) – 15 Games Played (GP), 1 Goal (G), 4 Points (P)
Previous Rank: 14
It wasn’t that long ago that Jared McIsaac was considered part of a haul of prospects the Red Wings got in the early parts of the 2018 draft. After drafting forwards Filip Zadina, Joe Veleno and Jonatan Berggren, the Red Wings selected the Canadian defenseman early in the second round despite some scouting sources categorizing him as a first round talent. Since then, things haven’t gone Detroit’s way when it comes to this draft class, and McIsaac is a part of that disappointment.
McIsaac, a two-way defender that suffered through some big injuries throughout his development, has found himself going in and out of the Griffins’ lineup this season after holding down a consistent role since he went pro in 2021. It’s a classic case of his development stagnating while others in the prospect pool surpass him. I still think he can be a useful player under the right circumstances, but this is probably the last time his name is included in an article like this.
24. (D) Antti Tuomisto – 2019, 35th Overall
Grand Rapids Griffins (AHL) – 19 GP, 3 G, 8 P
Previous Rank: 24
Antti Tuomisto has finally brought his game to the pro level in North America. After two seasons at the University of…
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