I don’t mean to belabor the point, but I really did find Steve Yzerman and Kris Draper’s comments regarding balancing the concept of icing a more competitive team this season with continuing to develop for the future.
The Detroit News’s Ted Kulfan filed a noontime article discussing just that aspect of the Yzerman and Draper post-draft press conferences, and this quote from Draper is worth noting:
“When I’m walking into Little Caesars Arena, there’s a sense of pride to watching the Red Wings play,” Draper said. “Those moves, and moving out those picks to bring in players we brought in, it made sense to our organization.
“They made sense. We were able to bring in Nick Leddy, and he’s going to be a great mentor for all of your young defensemen. He can skate and the last couple of years going on long playoff runs with the New York Islanders, it just made sense to bring Nick Leddy in.
“And Nedeljkovic, it was a position we were looking for and we were able to get a 25-year-old goaltender that was pretty impressive this year and stepped up in big moments in the playoffs.”
I too would be proud to play for the Wings. In my case learning to walk again is a prerequisite to learning to skate.