A late-night ramble: Two examples of an Yzerplan that’s more straightforward than we think it may be

I’m going to weave a pair of disparate articles together by positing a particularly humbly-held opinion:

Red Wings GM Steve Yzerman isn’t as mysterious a person as we might think. He chooses to share his thoughts with the media on his terms, which is to say infrequently. When Yzerman does speak, he lays out the Yzerplan quite bluntly and directly, usually only after the fact. In retrospect, the courses of action which surprise fans and confuse pundits become linear and deliberate. If not, to quote one of the authors of the articles I quote in this rambling missive, “obvious.”

A good example is the Red Wings’ decision to draft Marco Kasper as the 8th overall pick in the 2022 NHL Draft in Montreal. In retrospect, the Red Wings only really had a couple of choices from which to pluck their future second line center.

Instead of choosing an undersized speedster in Matthew Savoie, the “local boy” in Frank Nazar III, or a big but lumbering skater in Connor Geekie, the Red Wings’ scouts and GM reached a consensus in picking a familiar face that their Swedish scouts had seen repeatedly in the smooth, polished Kasper from Rogle of the SHL.

DobberHockey’s Curtis Rines had this to say about the Wings’ drafting of Kasper:

Detroit Red Wings – Marco Kasper, C, Rögle BK, SHL (A): When you look at what Steve Yzerman has done since becoming general manager of the Red Wings, Kasper seemed like an obvious choice. He is an incredibly physical two-way centerman who possesses a high level of competitiveness, playing every shift like it’s the most important yet. Kasper is a top-level net front threat due to his tendency to drive the net and close-quarters scoring ability. He could still use some work on his shooting and overall puck abilities, but he fits perfectly in what Detroit is trying to build and should be a solid 2C down the line.

Kasper was indeed the “obvious choice”–the self-determined 18-year-old is mature, focused, hard-working, and he plays for one of the Red Wings’ de-facto Swedish developmental arms in Rogle BK (which, like Frolunda HC, is littered with Wings prospects).

From what I witnessed of Kasper over the course of the Wings’ development camp, between his excellent skating skills, his overall poise, offensive flourish, and defensively responsible play, add in the maturity factor (he turned 18 in April, and hasn’t graduated high school yet, but the plucky Kasper has already played in a full SHL season’s worth of games, and he learned Swedish in addition to English in order to “fit in”)…

And you get the best fit for the what kind of team the Red Wings are trying to build.

Speaking of “building up the middle,” the Red Wings’ signing of Andrew Copp–again, in retrospect–seems equally “obvious.”

The Wings had several options to fill their second-line center’s spot, but the 28-year-old Copp, a hard-working, defensively responsible center whose pedigree just happens to run through the University of Michigan and his hometown of Ann Arbor, MI, made the most sense, even before free agency began.

So the Red Wings picked the obvious choice, and, as NHL.com’s fantasy hockey staff suggest, Copp should fit in just fine, especially with Jakub Vrana and/or David Perron available to him on the wing:

The Detroit Red Wings signed forwards David Perron (two-year contract) and Andrew Copp (five-year contract), significantly boosting their top-six forward group for this season.  

Copp brings versatility to the rebuilding Red Wings and is likely to be their No. 2 center with exposure to two of the following valuable wings: Perron, Jakub Vrana and Tyler Bertuzzi. Perron had 57 points (27 goals, 30 assists) in 67 games with the St. Louis Blues last regular season and led them in points (13 in 12 games) and goals (nine) during the Stanley Cup Playoffs. Perron, who’s like to play on the second line with Copp, brings the experience and consistency (at least 40 points in six straight seasons) to increase the fantasy value of both forwards. 

Copp was better than a point per game (18 in 16 games) last regular season and an instrumental part of New York’s run to the Eastern Conference Final (14 points in 20 Stanley Cup Playoff games). Copp loses some fantasy appeal moving away from the Rangers’ second line with elite left wing Artemi Panarin but remains in the top 250 for one of the most-improved teams in Detroit, which also acquired Ville Husso from the St. Louis Blues and is expected to incorporate elite defenseman prospect Simon Edvinsson.

Copp’s offensive “upside” may have diminished somewhat without Panarin’s presence, but he’s still good for anywhere between 35-55 points over the course of a full season, and that’s both essentially what the Wings got out of Pius Suter, with Copp’s more physical edge and better faceoff skills added into the mix.

Taken in a “from the rear-view mirror” perspective, the Wings’ free agency needs were depth, depth, a bit of an edge, and more depth. They went out and bought it in Copp (2-way center with speed and scoring abilities), Perron (secondary, power play-savvy scoring, and instigating), Dominik Kubalik (third line scoring), Olli Maatta (steady 2D/3D defense) and Ben Chiarot (a physical edge with second-pair capabilities).

Hell, even Mark Pysyk (depth defenseman), Matt Luff (AHL scoring) and Austin Czarnik (AHL scoring) all fill in holes on the Wings’ depth chart. So does Ville Husso, their #1A/1B goaltender to push Alex Nedeljkovic.

The only thing the Red Wings didn’t really address was the team’s need for a top-pair defenseman to play alongside Moritz Seider, and if Chiarot, Maatta, Jordan Oesterle or Jake Walman can’t do the job in a pinch, there’s a rumor out there from Elliotte Friedman and Jeff Marek’s 32 Thoughts podcast that the Wings may be considering making a bid for John Klingberg (who’s 29).

Adding someone like Klingberg would overload Detroit’s right side, but afford the Wings the opportunity to either move somebody over to the left side on the first pair, or trade Filip Hronek for somebody that could fill the hole.

And at least Yzerman didn’t go out and flip Hronek and a draft pick for 34-year-old Jeff Petry, like the Penguins did on Saturday. The Pens acquired a defenseman who’s got 3 years left on a massive deal at $6.25 million per season, and it cost them Mike Matheson, a very solid second-pair guy and a mid-round pick for Petry and lower-end prospect Ryan Poehling.

Yzerman was blunt during his media availability on Thursday, however, saying that the Wings were probably done in free agency, but would continue to explore adding assets via trades with capped-out teams, and maybe that’s how the Wings will address their 1st-pair issue, presuming that, as Yzerman suggested, the Wings won’t just have Chiarot start the year opposite Seider or Hronek (and then address their first-pair issue at next year’s trade deadline, again, presuming that Simon Edvinsson doesn’t step in at the NHL level).

Long story long, Steve Yzerman doesn’t give out his phone number to too many people, he doesn’t speak to the media that often, and he operates on his own terms, so we tend to believe that the Yzerplan is a mysterious and unpredictable entity.

If you look back at the moves that the Red Wings make, however, it appears that the Red Wings’ GM, management and scouts in fact move very linearly and deliberately toward fulfilling their personnel goals, and, when on-ice results require the team to make alterations to player personnel…

They again move very linearly and deliberately to fill holes on the roster (see: trading for Husso as the Blues were too capped out to retain him).

So we’ll see what the rest of the summer has in store for our Red Wings, and we should expect that, if the team has any roster concerns, they will be addressed in time by a very deliberate and logical GM and his fine staff of management and pro and amateur scouts. That’s what the Yzerplan is all about.