I’m going to be completely honest with you: around 3 PM, 30 or so minutes before the Jacob Trouba trade to Anaheim, I just plain tapped out.
Thursday was a very busy day for my family as Aunt Annie had an echocardiogram at the cardiologist’s office, and getting her dressed and ready, out the door with her walker, into the car, into the office, through the procedure, and then slowly home actually took a lot of energy. It’s funny what it means to essentially be the sherpa for an 82-year-old with two hips that are almost healed (we hit the 8-month-mark in 10 days, woo!)…
But the long story long here is that I got tired and took a nap.
So I missed out on Trouba’s press conference, and, while recording the latest episode of the Flying Octopus Podcast, we missed Trouba’s interview on ESPN+ about his trade to Anaheim.
As such, I’m swiping this from Paul Kukla of Abel to Yzerman:
Jacob Trouba, asked on ESPN if he ever considered possibility of playing in Detroit, says: "Obviously I've thought about that. I think somebody should maybe verify with the Red Wings if they were interested. Has anybody taken that route?"
— Max Bultman (@m_bultman) December 7, 2024
I think that Steve Yzerman went down an old road in terms of seeing whether there could be a fit for Trouba and the Wings given that the team was obviously interested in Trouba during the summer, but that window clearly closed.
Sounds like Steve Yzerman was very interested in bringing Jacob Trouba to the Red Wings but was unable to come to trade terms to make it work.
— Emily Kaplan (@emilymkaplan) December 6, 2024
Let’s move on now.
Is Trouba better than Chiarot, Holl and the rest of the “veteran” d-men Yzerman has signed of the years? Of course he is. Steve has no one else to blame for not getting this done but himself. If not for all those contracts on the roster, the Trouba trade would’ve been made in a heart beat.
At this point, I’d rather just tank this season and hope for some draft lottery luck. Trade Kane and any veteran you can for some picks and retool in the offseason. Hopefully we strike gold in free agency with someone like Mitch Marner.