Abel to Yzerman

Abel to Yzerman

A2Y- Steve Yzerman's Deadline Thoughts

02/26/2023 at 9:02pm EST

from Bob Duff of Detroit Hockey Now,

Appearing on Agent Provocateur, the podcast featuring NHL player agent Allen Walsh, Yzerman did admit that his perspective on what they might do in terms of personnel this week is changing.

“A month ago, we weren’t this close,” Yzerman said. “For us today, we’re kind of right in the middle. And we’re gonna have to make some decisions.”

While his approach to the trade deadline might be different this year, don’t be expecting Yzerman to take a radical approach, either.

“Ultimately, we’re still trying to build, we’re still trying to get better,” Yzerman said. “I wouldn’t expect us to go out and be trading our best assets for rental players, or anything like that.”

At the same time, that doesn’t mean he won’t be doing anything to improve his team’s chances of completing their postseason chase as a success story.

“We wouldn’t be opposed to making a trade, but it would be for players we know are part of our future,” Yzerman said. “Not opposed to (giving up young assets) but it’s gotta be for somebody who’s gonna be here with us.”

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GregorMacGregor

I heard some of this interview on the radio. Hes an insightful and earnest speaker, was an enjoyable listen. One thing that stuck out to me was his bit on whether trying to make the playoffs without much chance of actually winning the cup was a worthwhile thing to do. His answer was yes, from a purely business perspective; puts butts in seats, drives ticket sales, etc. I am happy to hear it. I want to watch good hockey, even if we dont win the cup. It makes me gag a little bit whenever I see people advocating for tanking or selling off all our assets, I suppose in the hope that the next lottery ticket will be the winner. But hey, the lottery players at my corner store still look about the same. 

dcaGregorMacGregor

Comparing the Michigan lottery to the NHL draft is a terrible comparable:
In the NHL draft a player picked in the first round has approx a 77% chance of playing over 100 games as an NHL pro and the higher the pick the better the odds. Versus the lottery odds of about 1 in one million to win $10,000 or about a 1 in 25 to win any prize (4%). I don't know about you but to me the difference between 77% and 4% is enough to make it a terrible comparison--let alone to inferring a big money win.


Any financial perspective on the Wings is ridiculous. Remember this family bought the Red Wings for $8M in 1982 (that's only $24,673,814.43 in 2023's dollars). This is the family that got taxpayers to pay $324.1M towards its new arena--and is getting even more taxpayer money to develop the area they already promised to develop (the whole public benefit and reason they got the original money).


Seeing anyone advocate for making the playoffs for financial perspective (esp with Wings' ownership) is enough to make me gag. Seeing a hockey fan advocate to make the playoffs (similar to those losers that wanted Detroit's 23 straight years of playoffs to continue back in the 2010's). Those years where making the playoffs was the goal--not competing for a Cup. Those losers set the organization and its rebuild back years. It's why you see teams sell off and tank. It's the right strategy and even Ken Holland and Dave Dombrowski knew it.


But hey remember all those mediocre Piston years where they were a borderline playoff team or just missed them and thus got mid-round picks only to repeat it for about a decade. Yeah that's the kind of fans that absolutely drive me crazy--the ones that accept mediocrity and like it.

damndogrevengedca

This is the family that got taxpayers to pay $324.1M towards its new arena--and is getting even more taxpayer money to develop the area they already promised to develop (the whole public benefit and reason they got the original money).

PREACH! 

HippyDave

Treading water to make the playoffs just to get knocked out early is what drove our team into a permanent mediocrity for years.  Go for the throat or dont.

dcaHippyDave

Agreed.


I just think the Pistons are the classic example (esp '94-00 and '09-'18 era's) when they would end up with Theo Ratliff, Jerome Williams, Scot Pollard, Mateen Cleaves or Rodney Stuckey, Austin Daye, Greg Monroe, Brandon Knight, Andre Drummond, KCP, Stanley Johnson, Luke Kennard, and Sekou Doumbouya because they didn't commit to a strategy of a thorough rebuild.

SYF

Well, he did preach patience and perseverance as fans.  He knows we want  a winning team like he did under Bowman.  Gotta give him that.

dcaSYF

I think SY has been given leniency that not many other GM's would ever get (finishes: 8th in division, 7th in division, 6th in division, to now a borderline playoff team) after inheriting a 3 year rebuild leading into him taking over--any other GM would be on the hot-seat. SY isn't even close to that. Will the Tigers give Scott Harris 4 years to remake the rebuild after inheriting top 5 picks from '18 to '21 and adding a #3 pick this summer?

SY is like a cult guru that can do no wrong among some fans (cue the trust in the Yzerplan crowd). If you want a winning team like the championship Wings had you need superstars. I count one (Seider) with Raymond, Edvinsson, and Kasper still too young to tell. Add those to a very good 2nd line centre (Larkin) and a positive salary cap outlook and you see a recipe for success. But I also see gaping holes in the team.

Now, when you pick 4th at best that is definitely not on the GM---but taking a gamble on a 1st round goalie, signing (and re-signing) vets to areas where you are super deep in NHL caliber prospects, selling
prospects (like Regula) for Dan Cleary-like projects, and especially not selling players going into their walk summers: that is on the GM.

If you really want to preach patience and perseverance then make the unpopular difficult decision: sell the rentals.

I get that SY wants to get off the suck at playing beyond the regular season list:
SAC (NBA) 17 yrs
NYJ (NFL) 12 yrs
BUF (NHL) 11 yrs
DET (MLB) and ANH (MLB)  8 yrs
KC (MLB) and PIT (MLB) 7 yrs
TEX (MLB), CHA (NBA), and DET (NHL) 6 yrs

but if SY really wanted to field a championship team than 'lil Bert at the very least would be sold as a rental player---especially when you can see the cannon fodder coming given a 1st round opponent.

Or to put it simply: You can have a great team that can put a valiant effort--but when you have superstars that can simply will their team to victory (like Vasilevskiy just showed): you better not be sacrificing the long-term for playoff ticket & concession sales.

MurrayChadwick

Look at the returns teams are getting, Tanner Jeannot returned Nashville Foote a 1st, 2nd 3rd, and 5th. 

Not trading Bertuzzi is just not smart long term thinking. 

damndogrevengeMurrayChadwick

Half of the Wings FAs should be traded. I am enjoying this run they are but if it's just to put butts in sits then this rebuild may get pushed out. Build a dynasty not a flash in the pan.

rwbilldamndogrevenge

I dont disagree in principle except that it is extremely difficult to build a dynasty in this hard cap era, at least a dynasty as we knew it.  The Blackhawks had some good great years but came crashing down abruptly.  Pittsburgh is still a good team, not really a contender, the Caps are on the fringe.  If you can get a core of superstars you might be able to last by rotating some good support players.

Standings churn was an objective of NHL, Inc., and thats happening I think.

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Welcome to Abel to Yzerman, a Red Wing blog since 1977. No other site on the internet has better-researched, fact-laden and better prepared discussions than A2Y. Re-phrase: we do little research, find facts and stats highly overrated and claim little to no preparation. There are 19 readers of A2Y. No more, no less. All of them, except maybe one, are juvenile in nature. Reminding them of that in the comment section will only encourage them to prove that.

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