Remember when the Detroit Red Wings’ offseason moves were going to depend on what they did with restricted free agents Lucas Raymond and Moritz Seider?

Well, with the majority of the offseason moves completed, including the signing of RFA Joe Veleno, the two biggest free agents remain unsigned. With more than $17 million in cap space left for those two and fellow RFA Jonatan Berggren, Detroit has plenty of cap space left over to negotiate new deals. The majority of that cap space is earmarked for Raymond and Seider, but its existence leaves negotiating room for the Red Wings to flexibly negotiate with them.

The current situation was the plan that Detroit accounted for.

“We set aside a certain amount of money in the budget for them,” Red Wings GM Steve Yzerman said of his four RFAs back on July 4. “And as free agency went along and we’re trying to get our own guys signed, we had to tweak things a little bit. But what hasn’t changed is what we think those four players are going to come in at. We will get contracts done with them, it’s just a question of when and then what term do we actually do on all of them.”

Veleno re-signed for two years at $2.275 million, and it’s doubtful that Berggren makes anything more than $1 million. So, almost all of Yzerman’s remaining cap space is usable for his biggest transactions.

Yzerman tends to negotiate hard with his restricted free agents — in contrast to his frequent overpays on the open market — and expecting a quick contract for two of the most important extensions for the Red Wings’ future was probably foolish. As much as Detroit probably wanted to get Raymond and Seider under contract quickly, Yzerman’s style isn’t known for its speed. Just look at how he dragged Dylan Larkin along in the last year of his former contract, or even how he took Steven Stamkos to the eleventh hour in the famed 2016 free agency cycle.

But in order to negotiate with the patience required to pick apart dollars and term, Yzerman and the Red Wings had to maintain enough cap space to negotiate with. With negotiations able to go a lot of different ways — through long term deals, bridge deals or anything in between — Yzerman’s $17 million in cap space leaves him with options.

As calculated by AFP Analytics, Raymond is projected to make roughly $7.7 million on a seven-year deal and $6.1 million on a three-year deal. AFP chalks Seider at $7.5 million for an eight-year deal or $6 million for three. Those are estimates, otherwise created to be inaccurate, but they give a good sense that Detroit needed between $15 million to $12 million to get them both under contract.

Yzerman has more than enough to go any which way he wants. Having extra cap space gives him the flexibility to take negotiations in a lot of different ways. If he’s able to sign Raymond or Seider to a long-term deal, he has the cap space to do it, whereas preserving less cap space would’ve almost certainly forced him into a short-term deal. Yzerman can also sign his RFAs to a deal somewhere in the middle around four or five years, which should lower the cap hit compared to a long-term extension while giving Detroit more years of club control.

There’s a difference in keeping enough cap space to go long term and keeping just enough for a short term deal. From the looks of it, Yzerman prioritized leaving himself enough wiggle room to work on his RFAs instead of being bold elsewhere. This might explain a rather tepid free agency from Yzerman, where he made a splash in retaining Patrick Kane but otherwise missed out on the top free agents of the free agent class. In the end, his biggest additions were goaltender Cam Talbot and forward Vladimir Tarasenko, but he missed on the big names including one mystery free agent he spoke of July 4.

“There was one player we thought might have been a real good fit, but it was going to be a challenge to get it done,” Yzerman said July 1. “And the concern on that day, on July 1, is (that) everybody’s gone if you kind of go down a certain road. So, we had to adjust what we decided, which way we were gonna want it to go here, and chose the path we did.”

The path Yzerman chose avoided a long-term commitment to a top-dollar player, a contract that would’ve eaten lots of cap space that wound up adding multiple players in free agency. If they had hypothetically landed that big free agent, any depth adds around them probably would have eaten into some of the Raymond-Seider fund, too. Yzerman chose a path of patience, rather than getting too aggressive and overextend his cap space.

Yzerman might have more than $17 million in cap space, but now comes the hard part: using it. Now that almost all the other cards this offseason have been played, he has to finish negotiations with his star RFAs, deals that will impact both the present and future cap sheet.

Back in April, it looked like Yzerman’s offseason would start with Raymond and Seider. Now, it’s going to finish with them. And it’s those final moves that could have the biggest ramifications.