DETROIT — In signing Jacob Bernard-Docker to a one-year free-agent contract on July 1, the Detroit Red Wings not only added depth and physicality on the back end, but a former first-round pick who has a strong internal drive to prove himself to his new club in the 2025-26 season.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of potential there, and [Detroit] is a team on the right trajectory,\u201d Bernard-Docker said in his introductory Zoom call with the media last month. \u201cI\u2019m super excited to go there, show what I got and hopefully be a contributor.\u201d<\/p>\n
Originally selected by Ottawa at No. 26 overall in the 2018 NHL Entry Draft, Jacob Bernard-Docker split last season between the Senators and Buffalo Sabres and finished with eight points (two goals, six assists) as well as a plus-5 rating in 40 games.<\/p>\n
\u201cJacob Bernard-Docker gives us a little bit of depth on defense\u2026 an effective player in his time in Ottawa in particular,\u201d Red Wings Executive Vice President and General Manager Steve Yzerman said last month. \u201cHe plays hard and competes.\u201d<\/p>\n
Having a strong sense of his identity is as a player — someone who can be \u201cannoying and kind of always on guys\u201d — helps Bernard-Docker set goals for himself that he works hard to achieve.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s another part of my game in the NHL, I feel like maybe hasn\u2019t been as consistent as I want it to be, is just the physicality aspect,\u201d Jacob Bernard-Docker said. \u201cAnd there\u2019s been some games where I think I\u2019ve shown I can do that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DETROIT — In signing Jacob Bernard-Docker to a one-year free-agent contract on July 1, the Detroit Red Wings…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":82089,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[385,99],"class_list":["post-82088","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82088","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=82088"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82088\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/82089"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=82088"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=82088"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=82088"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}