Rasmus Dahlin couldn’t save Red Wings by himself

The Detroit Red Wings won’t be making the playoffs this season, which leaves fans with nothing to cheer for until the draft lottery takes place in May. A little bit of luck is all that stands between the organization and Rasmus Dahlin, the presumed No. 1 pick in the upcoming NHL entry draft, and he’s being viewed as the possible light at the end of a dreadful regular season.

The excitement surrounding the 17-year-old is palpable, and every single franchise with a small chance at landing Dahlin is saying their Hail Marys and praying that things fall their way a month and a half from now. There’s no team in the league that couldn’t use a top defenseman, and the chances of securing one via free agency have all but vanished in the salary cap era.

If you want a No. 1 defenseman, you have to draft one or trade a No. 1 center for one. Those are pretty much your only two roads to landing elite defenseman in the NHL these days.

Which makes Dahlin a dream come true for Detroit; a team that has been looking for an anchor on the blue line since Nicklas Lidstrom hung up his skates in 2012. Leave it to The Perfect Human to stoke the fire of Dahlin possibly landing with the Red Wings even more. He spoke to Helene St. James of The Detroit Free Press over the weekend and had some pretty high praise for the teenager.

If Red Wings devotees weren’t already fired up about possibly adding the native of Trollhattan, Sweden, then they are now. The idea of getting the second coming of Nicklas Lidstrom should be enticing to anyone. Which makes now a good time to remind fans that one single player can’t save a franchise by himself. No matter how good he is.

Should the lotto balls fall in Detroit’s favor, it’ll be an exciting day for the Red Wings. And rightfully so. Yet it’ll just be one single piece — an important one, no doubt, but still just one — falling into place for the team. Even with the potential All-World defender in the fold, general manager Ken Holland will still have a lot of work cut out for him in terms of reshaping this roster.

One needn’t look any further than Edmonton to see evidence of that. The Oilers were gifted Connor McDavid by a lucky draft lotto bounce, and yet even icing arguably the most effective offensive forward on planet Earth isn’t enough to cover up bad asset management by the front office.

McDavid hasn’t been surrounded by talented players, and instead, Peter Chiarelli seems intent to give up as much for as little in return while constructing the Oilers.

The point is that Dahlin couldn’t save the Red Wings alone, and should he happen to land in Detroit, it’d be unfair to expect him to. Could he be the kind of game-breaker Holland has repeatedly searched for during free agency and late in drafts? Absolutely, but is he good enough to elevate the blue line all by himself?

Not to mention Detroit’s track record of developing highly thought of defensive prospects into quality top-four defenders has been spotty as of late. Brendan Smith didn’t pan out. Dan DeKeyser isn’t the player we thought he would be a few years ago. Ryan Sproul wasn’t a top-six player for the Red Wings despite being a second-round pick. Jakub Kindl was a disappointment across all 273 regular season games he played with Detroit.

Looking around the NHL at the better teams, a handful of them don’t just have one good defensemen and a few mid-range depth options. They are loaded with talent on the back end. From the Nashville Predators to the Boston Bruins to the Tampa Bay Lightning, the top organizations are oozing with skilled blueliners.

Jonathan Ericsson hasn’t been as bad this season as he has been in years gone by, but does an Ericsson/Dahlin top pairing propel Detroit to a wild-card spot in 2018-19? It doesn’t seem likely. They’ll still need more; they’ll need to draft and develop players outside of Dahlin.

Again, none of this is to detract from the defenseman and what he could bring to the table for the Red Wings. He would be a monster get, and no one here is denying that. But expecting him to swoop in wearing a Superman cape, saving Detroit with superhuman strength and heat vision lasers simply isn’t realistic.

Get excited about the possibility of landing the Dahlin, but remember that he’s just one player and Holland has a lot of work to do regardless of who he can draft this summer.