As the Free Press’s Helene St. James notes, Red Wings GM Steve Yzerman doesn’t take Filip Zadina’s decision to terminate the 2 years remaining on his contract by going through unconditional waivers to be a fool’s errand:
Locking up newcomer Alex DeBrincat through 2026-27 on a deal with a $7,875,000 annual average value still leaves the Wings flexibility, thanks partly to terminating the contract of Filip Zadina. When that was triggered last week, the Wings saved $1.825 million in salary cap space and $4.56 million in actual salary over the next two seasons, while Zadina walked away from the nearly $5 million in guaranteed salary.
“That’s a positive,” Yzerman said Monday. “I go back to, when we signed Filip a year ago, the feeling was he’s going to get better and continue to play a bigger role. Mostly through injury this year, that didn’t happen. I’d rather have a $1.8 million in cap space than potentially a player playing in the AHL. So, Filip wanted a fresh start. He’s able to do that. Good for him. And we’re able to put the not only the cap space but the actual dollars into other things.”
…
“We discussed it, I brought it up with Filip earlier in the summer, discussed it with his agent a little bit,” Yzernan said. “Ultimately if he wanted a fresh start — I tried to trade him, we put him on waivers, just couldn’t move him. This is the only way to get a fresh start.
“I really respect him for making this decision. He’s not a dumb person. He knows what he’s given up. But his career is more important than the dollars and I wish him well, I really do. My experience with him was always good. He’s a nice young man, he’s worked hard, it just hasn’t worked out. I wish him good luck somewhere else.”
Hopefully it happens in San Jose, where Zadina signed a 1-year, $1.1 million contract.
