In 2024–2025, Raymond and Seider will have more leadership responsibilities.

The Detroit Red Wings’ leadership group has given Lucas Raymond and Moritz Seider a “increased role” this season, demonstrating their significance to the team’s present and future.

The significance of Lucas Raymond and Moritz Seider to the Detroit Red Wings cannot be overstated. The Detroit Red Wings are stuck trying to figure out how to re-sign them in the middle of August because they are so vital. Detroit needs to get the specifics of its contract right, since it will be influencing the team’s future for the next eight years.

Beyond just their point totals and cap hits, Seider and Raymond have further ability to influence the team. As leaders, they are equally capable. That’s the next move that both players should make, and it should happen soon.

“Those two, the role they’ll play on our team, I think will be a little increased role with our leadership, too,” Red Wings coach Derek Lalonde said Aug. 7. “That’s something we talked about with those two this summer.” What exactly will this increased role entail? Lalonde didn’t go into specifics, but the details are fairly obvious to an outside observer. At a cursory glance, Raymond is Detroit’s best young forward who showed a tendency to take over games last season, even when many teammates seemed to lose all hope. Seider meanwhile takes on Herculean defensive workloads and often comes out on the winning side with rather limited help from his teammates. Any coach would be wise to point teammates in their direction and say “follow what that guy’s doing.” The next step is to get them to directly inspire their peers.

The key to becoming a leader is finding a way to transcend individual success and inspire it from teammates. This doesn’t take speeches or jersey letters to be a leader, but it does take an active voice in guiding teammates. Considering the number of young prospects expected to join the team in the coming years, guidance is only going to be more important.

Young athletes like Seider and Raymond typically don’t have the experience and confidence necessary for leadership at their age. The two youngest players in the lineup aren’t often the ones that everyone looks up to by default, especially on a team with a beloved captain like Dylan Larkin and a ton of other seasoned NHLers on the roster. However, since Raymond and Seider will always be two of Detroit’s most crucial players, their mission now is to develop into more prominent figures in the organization so that they can play such a key role down the road.

Seider and Raymond aren’t complete rookies when it comes to leadership. Internationally, Seider and Raymond are held in high esteem by their teammates. Raymond wore an “A” for Sweden at the past two IIHF Men’s World Championships. Seider captained Team Germany at the World Junior Championships in 2018 and 2019. There are leadersdhip qualities in both, and now it’s a matter of sharpening them to be effective at the NHL level.

As far as recognition of that leadership, perhaps there’s a day in the near future that Raymond and/or Seider might wear a letter. Someday, an alternate captain’s “A” probably will be stitched across their jersey, but might all this leadership talk be a sign that day might be sooner than anticipated?

The “A” that David Perron once wore is currently for sale. Ben Chiarot and Andrew Copp served as the other alternative captains. When injuries prevented the others from playing, Michael Rasmussen occasionally donned a “A,” and Patrick Kane wore it when he returned to Chicago. Given their professional success thus far, Seider and Raymond may inherit a letter, but those two most certainly have the inside track to reclaim Perron’s old A in the upcoming season.

It was Larkin’s fourth season, after all, that he earned the alternate captaincy. While he was a much more established leadership presence than Raymond and Seider have shown at least publicly, they’re reaching that point in their careers where they’ve earned the respect of their teammates and peers just like he did.

Letter or not, Raymond and Seider’s task to take on greater leadership roles is a testament to how important they are to Detroit’s future. Not only do the Red Wings want them to be two core pieces of their team, but they want them to be the guiding tone-setters of the next era of the franchise.