Our final story about Red Wings GM Steve Yzerman’s Monday press conference comes from the Free Press’s Helene St. James, who notes the following:
Asked what else he wants to address, Yzerman smiled and replied, “Sleep would be one.”
But here’s what’s keeping him awake: “I think the general consensus is, ‘Hey, the Red Wings need to score more,’ ” Yzerman said. “We need to keep the puck out of our net, we need to be better defensively, we’d like our special teams to be better. I’m counting on collectively, the entire group, that everybody chip in a little bit on offense, which will help us score more. Getting Robby Fabbri back healthy, Lucas Raymond a year older. J.T. Compher coming into the mix, chipping in some goals.
“Collectively, I expect us to improve a little bit. Probably still not where we’d all like to be, so we’ll continue in the offseason here, what, if anything, if it be through some more free agents that are still out there, or even look at potential trades.”
Yzerman has about $10 million left in salary cap space after his shopping spree. He had to replace goal-scoring forwards Tyler Bertuzzi and Jakub Vrána, and defenseman Filip Hronek, all of whom were traded, and goaltenders Alex Nedeljkovic and Magnus Hellberg, who were not re-signed.
Continued; nobody wants to hear this, but we’ll have to wait and see what the rest of the summer holds in terms of free agency and trades.
