3 Red Wings PTO goals before the 2025-26 season – Hockey Writer – Detroit Red Wings
With the NHL training camp opening next week, we are a few days away from the roster of training camp and will be announced from all 32 teams. While most of the excitement centers revolve around the centers of seeing the prospect for the first time as well as free agents and trade acquisitions, most training camp members are incomplete without some players participating in the trial agreement (also called PTOS).
In recent years, Detroit Red Wing has achieved success in PTO. Recent examples have seen forward Austin Watson join the team for trials, and his body and experience have finally won him a two-way contract to use these tools in the NHL and the American Hockey League (AHL). While PTOs do not always lead to NHL contracts, participants in these protocols can help address the needs of highlighting within the roster battles and organizational depth maps.
With that in mind, here are some players with red wings that may target PTO this year.
Craig Smith
Fans should be familiar with the name when fans became members of the Red Wings last season. Craig Smith, 36, was acquired from the Chicago Blackhawks in the trade deadline deal, which also sent goalkeeper Petr Mrázek to Detroit. In 19 games, he only had 2 points, two assists, and averaged 10 minutes of ice time per night.
Related: 3 underrated prospects for Red Wings enter 2025-26
Smith is a senior in the NHL’s 987 regular season and 83 playoff games. He has extensive experience and can be useful for the young talent of Red Wings, especially in the competitive environment of training camp. He will compete for roles in Detroit’s minimum six and free throw kills, but he won’t pose a major threat to the group’s younger players, which could fill those roles as well.
Smith was very good at Red Wings last season and he is likely to be a solid veteran this season. That being said, he is the type of player you invite to the training camp to set the baseline that young players need to rise.
JaniHakanpää
The 33-year-old defensive player Jani Hakanpää was limited to two games last season with Toronto’s Maple Leafs, which was due to a knee injury that eventually led to surgery. Prior to last season, he was a big, mean defensive player for three seasons as a Dallas star. He was cleared from practice at the end of the Maple Leaf season and is now hoping to make up for the season he lost.
Hakanpää is 6-foot-7 inches tall and weighs 225 pounds and is not afraid to use his own size. He has accumulated 668 hits in 226 regular season games, an average of less than three per game. Since Niklas Kronwall’s preferred choice, Red Wings have no physical presence on the blue line, and even Kronwall does not have the soy kit owned by Hakanpää.
Red Wings need another right-handed defender on the blue line, and his physical performance will be associated with the organization’s goals to make it more difficult to confront. It’s worth at least a PTO, but it can quickly turn into a contract based on the appearance of his knee.
Andreas Athanasiou
Another name Andreas Athanasiou should be familiar with should be his first four and a half seasons of his NHL career in Detroit before being traded to the Edmonton Oilers on the 2020 trade deadline. He has spent two seasons with the Los Angeles Kings since then with the Blackhawks in his final three seasons.
The 2012 draft was a fourth-round pick, and it was the best season of Athanasiou’s career in the 2018-19 season, which was his last season at the Red Wings – when he scored 30 goals and 54 points). He had 20 goals and 40 points in his first season in Chicago, but he ended his time with the AHL’s Rockford Icehogs, scoring 27 points in 30 games.
Athanasiou’s game has always been speed and offense. He is the type of player you invite to camp, competing with potential clients like Nate Danielson and Amadeus Lombardi, playing the mid-term six for Red Wings. With his nearly 500 regular season experience, Athanasiou may be a good “pinch” on the offensive end when the team needs sparks. If he is willing to accept a two-way contract like Watson last season, Athanasiou will also make a huge push to the Grand Rapids Griffins offense.
How many days does the training camp be
As training camps begin soon, shortly after the preseason starts, it’s interesting to see who plays roles and roles with whom. We should have a good idea for the lineup after Detroit’s training camp begins next week.
