Would a Simon Edvinsson trade even make sense for Utah?

A high-profile player reportedly just became available. As always, NHL insiders are tying him to the Utah Mammoth.

The player in question is 23-year-old defenseman Simon Edvinsson, who has played the duration of his career with the Detroit Red Wings. He and the Red Wings have yet to reach an agreement contract-wise, forcing him to sit out the beginning of the season.

He’s currently skating in Sweden with his former SHL team, Frölunda HC, which plays in Edvinsson’s hometown of Gothenburg. The decision to do that came after he attended Red Wings training camp without a contract — a risky move, as he wouldn’t get paid if an injury derailed his career.

Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman reported on Saturday that at this point, Edvinsson prefers to be traded rather than remaining a Red Wing.

Does it make sense for the Mammoth to target the 6-foot-6, 222-pound behemoth? Here’s why it might and might not.

It doesn’t take a keen eye to notice how Edvinsson sticks out among his peers. He’s a head taller than most of them.

Edvinsson uses his size to his advantage in three distinct ways:

His long reach combines with his elite hockey IQ to make him extremely effective in breaking up rushes. He also has the hand-eye coordination of a baseball player, and uses it constantly to knock down saucer passes.

He’s also an absolute puck hound. He gives his opponents zero time and space, thus creating a lot of turnovers. That’s exactly how the Mammoth played in their two season-opening wins this year, so he would fit nicely in that regard.

Some elite defensemen need power play time to thrive. Edvinsson is not one of those guys. In fact, only one of his 60 career points came with the man-advantage. He will, however, play as many penalty-kill minutes as are required of him.

The one offensive area where he does excel is his first pass — something Mammoth GM Bill Armstrong has mentioned on many occasions as a trait he looks for in his defensemen. Edvinsson has an innate ability to thread stretch passes through traffic to spring guys on odd-man rushes.

In both of his full NHL seasons, Edvinsson has led Red Wings defensemen in empty-net goals. That’s significant because it shows that he’s on the ice when the team urgently needs to protect leads. Not many guys in their early 20s have that type of trust from their coaches.

Edvinsson played on Detroit’s top D pairing last season alongside Moritz Seider. Even with that level of responsibility, and despite the fact that he represented a non-playoff team, he allowed very few goals, relatively speaking.

At even strength in 2025-26, Edvinsson allowed goals against in 4.26% of the minutes he played. By contrast, Cale Makar, who played similar minutes on a much better team, allowed goals against in 3.99% of his minutes.

Edvinsson was much better in that regard than Norris Trophy winner Zach Werenski (5.19%), Norris finalist Rasmus Dahlin (4.70%) and superstar Quinn Hughes (5.65%).

All of that combined with the fact that he’s still getting better, as well as the fact that he fits age-wise with Utah’s best players, makes Edvinsson seem like the perfect fit for the Mammoth. But it’s not that simple.

As good of a player as Edvinsson is, the Utah Mammoth don’t necessarily have a spot for him to play.

Mikhail Sergachev is the top-pairing left-handed defenseman, and Edvinsson isn’t going to push him out of that spot anytime soon.

A casual observer would say he’s a massive upgrade over Nate Schmidt, Utah’s second-pairing LHD, but he and John Marino comprised one of the best partnerships in the league last season. There’s no need to mess that up.

Dmitri Simashev rounds out the left side of the D corps. He’s not as good as Edvinsson in the present, but the expectation is that he turns into that type of player in the near future. It would be possible for the Mammoth to include him in the trade package, but if they believe in Simashev, they might be better off to just keep him.

A potential solution could be to move Simashev to the right side — a spot he has played at lower levels in the past, though he strongly prefers to play the left side.

Size was an issue for the Mammoth in the playoffs last spring. Having those two as a defense pairing would instantly solve that problem.

Given the deals that defensemen around the league with far less experience have signed this summer, Edvinsson is set to make a heck of a lot of money. It’s almost certain that a sign-and-trade would make him Utah’s highest-paid player.

That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but the Mammoth would have to move out a significant amount of money to fit him under the cap.

The bulk of their core is already signed to long-term deals, which is good for cap certainty, but Clayton Keller’s major raise is due in two summers and they must leave enough room to get it done — and Sebastian Cossa, whom they acquired from the Red Wings this summer, could position himself for a big deal at the same time as Keller.

Aside from a second-round exit in the 2022 SHL playoffs and a few bronze medals in various international tournaments, Edvinsson doesn’t have much experience playing in high-stakes games. The Red Wings haven’t qualified for the postseason since 2016 — long before Edvinsson arrived.

He would need to learn and grow with the rest of Utah’s core players. That could be good for the group’s chemistry, but it also comes with growing pains, as the Mammoth experienced in the 2026 Stanley Cup Playoffs.

If Utah’s management does conclude that acquiring Edvinsson is in the team’s best interest, they could be better positioned to get a deal done than any other team.

The Mammoth have a stable full of young thoroughbreds chomping at the bit. They have plenty of draft picks (including an extra first-rounder in 2028) and they wouldn’t take too much of a hit if they were to deal away a current roster player or two.