"Aljo" has been under contract for 4 years, was loaned and slid in his age 19 season, was loaned back to Sweden for the first year that counted and played in Grand Rapids for two. He is due for a second contract now. As of 2024-25 he will no longer be waiver-exempt so he will either play all season in the NHL or he will have to clear waivers to go back down. In the time he's been with the Red Wings how many cups of coffee has he received to give an honest assessment of how he looks in the NHL? 0. That is a quite unusual thing to do with a 2nd round prospect an organization believes in during a "rebuild". So he will have to enter the NHL cold at a time the Wings are tying to be competitive... Those last couple years before a player loses waiver-exempt status are important evaluation years and why they typically get callups, unless they can't because they either stink or the team is too competitive to spend time developing prospects in the NHL.
This is actually the more typical way the Wings have handled prospects historically. When they have fast tracked them like they did for Ras and Zadina we've usually seen worse results. The fast tracking has only really worked with Ray and Larkin. Even Seider was a 2 year post draft guy.
Aljo is probably up this year if he wasn't behind a true blue chip guy in Ed. Who probably makes it earlier in the season if he hadn't had off season surgery. Aljo isn't an elite prospect by any means, and I think that is pretty typical for non elite guys on the Wings.
Now don't get me wrong I 100% understand what you mean about the eval time. The Wings fell into that trap badly during the XO, Marchenko, Jensen, Backman years. All of those guys basically ended up without a taste of the NHL before waivers and it was a mess.
The Wings can afford to let other D prospects slow roll, because Seider is already a #1 and Ed is at least a 2nd pairing anchor. Having a majority young defense at the NHL level rarely if ever works.
Now if the Wings lost Aljo to waivers without him ever playing in the NHL I will be mad and I will call out Yzerman for that. I think we'll see him to make deals to free up that 6/7 spot for him this offseason, and I think they are confident he'll be able to step right in. He plays a really steady game that should translate fairly well as a bottom pair guy. He also needed time to try and develop physically, he still isn't huge by any means but it took a long time to develop something like an NHL frame, which seems like it will be his biggest hold back. I could also see him dealt this offseason for an upgrade elsewhere.
I don't always agree with him but Yzerman fully pushes for holding off on prospects until they can step into the role the Wings plan for them to be in at the NHL level. He held off on Ed until he was confident that he could be in a top 4 role. Seider was the same way. Ray lucked out in that a top 6 spot opened and he started the season hot to stay up.
If we are going by pure eval I think both Ed and Danielson could have made the team out of camp, but Yzerman sent them down because he had top 4 and top 6 expectations. Ed seemingly proved right as he seamlessly stepped into the top 4 when he was called up permanently. We'll see how Danielson looks coming into camp next season.
