Red Wings part ways with Jake Paterson, qualify all other RFAs

Today is typically a mundane day for the various teams across the National Hockey League. The 31 franchises are required to send qualifying offers to restricted free agents that they’d like to continue holding the rights to, and in 90% of cases, they do. Today, however, the Detroit Red Wings walked away from a goaltender while holding onto the others in their system.

For reference, the “other” RFAs here were Andreas Athanasiou, Tomas Tatar, Xavier Ouellet, Robbie Russo, Martin Frk, and Brian Lashoff. All things considered, none of these should come as a surprise, other than maybe the 26-year-old Lashoff, who hasn’t really brought much to the table in his career to date despite being about as old as you can while still being restricted.

Paterson is the odd man out here, and it’s not hard to see why. The 23-year-old, originally drafted by Detroit in the third round of the 2012 draft, has struggled to make his way up the depth chart. He played three extra years of junior, catching fire at the end of his last season but otherwise not really moving the needle. Since then, he’s played out his ELC in the ECHL, putting up rather solid (>0.920 SV%) numbers with Toledo over 80 games, but only performing well enough to get two games with Grand Rapids.

Notably, Paterson flamed out at the end of this season, posting just a 0.888 SV% in nine playoff games with the Walleye.

Not getting a QO from the Red Wings doesn’t necessarily mean his time with the organisation is up. They could have the Griffins offer him an AHL contract for now, allowing them to continue developing him while avoiding the 50-contract limit. Alternatively, they may just not see much out of the 6’1, 183-pound Mississauga, Ontario native and are giving him an opportunity to find greener pastures.