My take on the Wings’ trade deadline performance, and the state of the rebuild

There’s a fair amount of criticism of Red Wings GM Steve Yzerman’s lateral trade made at the 2025 trade deadline (in adding 35-year-old forward Craig Smith and 33-year-old goaltender Petr Mrazek from Chicago, in exchange for Joe Veleno) being levied today…

But there’s a lot of crap out there about the so-called “Yzerplan’s” presumptive failure given the Red Wings management group’s continued risk-averse rebuilding plan, too.

I’ll readily admit that, as a Wings partisan, I was underwhelmed with and slightly confused by what the Red Wings did at the trade deadline.

With the team needing a second-line center due to Andrew Copp’s season-ending injury and a depth defender to attempt to fill the hole left by Jeff Petry’s season-ending surgery, the Wings addressed neither one of their needs, which struck me as a little weird.

Of course, during yesterday’s press conference, much to the annoyance of the Free Press’s Carlos Monarrez, Yzerman explained to the press that he was only presented with deadline rental deals for players who wouldn’t be part of the Wings’ long-term future, and/or trade proposals that would require “a 1st round pick plus plus” (as in plus a top prospect and meaningful roster player) to acquire a meaningful contributor.

Whether that’s an accurate assessment of the league-wide trade market is up for debate, and boy howdy, are Red Wings fans debating the GM’s finer points over the course of the past 24 hours. But there’s no reason for Yzerman to lie about what he was offered, either, and he bluntly stated that he was reticent (i.e. unwilling) to subtract from the Red Wings’ pool of prospects given the team’s status as a team “trying to go on a run” to simply make the playoffs.

Instead, Yzerman stated that he would make top prospect-sacrificing and/or first round pick-spending trades once Detroit was in the playoffs on a regular basis, or going for a deep playoff run.

For the interim, fans would have to wait for the management team (remember, Nicklas Lidstrom, Kris Draper, Shawn Horcoff and Kirk Maltby and the pro scouts are all part of the decision-making process here) to reassess the team’s situation.

Now do I think that he’s right?

Not necessarily. I think that the Red Wings have enough prospects and 2nd-round-and-below draft picks with which to make at least a slightly roster-improving trade or two. As The Hockey Writers’ Devin Little said on the Flying Octopus podcast yesterday, we both looked at the Winnipeg Jets’ additions of Brandon Tanev from Seattle and Luke Schenn from Pittsburgh as examples of low-cost rentals that could make sense for the Wings.

We also know that the Red Wings are not the Winnipeg Jets, and they didn’t have the kind of leverage that the Jets did going into the deadline.

So, does it suck that the Wings didn’t do more?

Yeah. I’m disappointed as to what they were able to do at the deadline.

But I at least understand where the Red Wings’ GM is coming from here, and while I may disagree with his decision to not add more at the deadline, I thought that he clearly stated his rationale for being risk-averse, and I respect where he’s coming from.

It’s not how I would run the team, but I’m not the GM for life, he is, and none of us are in his position.

There is nothing wrong with constructive criticism as to how the team’s been built and been run over the course of Yzerman’s tenure with the team. There’s nothing wrong with questioning some of the free agency and trade moves (or the lack thereof) by the management team, or the mid-season decision to fire Derek Lalonde and replace him with Todd McLellan.

Again, the team made the decisions that it made, and the Red Wings’ on-ice performance may be causing fans to go, “Oh no, here comes the late-season stumble again” as the Wings’ 5-game winless streak imperils Detroit’s playoff push, but it’s not like on-ice performance and off-ice decision-making have a linear relationship.

Things don’t work that way, and while we may be staring an 8th straight year of “no playoffs” in place, the Red Wings team’s attempts to get over the playoff hump have been much more difficult than we expected, with the team seemingly only learning the hard way–by losing–that the Wings have some lessons left to learn as to how to seal the deal in terms of becoming a consistently self-confident, high-performing winning machine.

I’m gonna be honest here: even after Todd McLellan took over as the Wings’ coach, I never expected the Wings to make the playoffs this season. I felt that the combination of the hole that the team dug during coach Lalonde’s tenure this season, combined with the fact that the team and its roster (for better or worse) is learning how to find its self-confidence and on-ice poise equaled one hopeful result: that the team would be playoff-relevant down the stretch while probably not making the playoff cut.

That’s been my level of expectations.

I’m just as impatient with the concept that we’re 8 years into what is probably a 10-to-12-year rebuilding plan as you are. I don’t think that it’s fair that Dylan Larkin’s 28 and may not play playoff hockey at Little Caesars Arena until he’s 30. I don’t think that it’s fair for the paying fan base to have to endure what it’s enduring.

But our favorite team is where it is at, in terms of its psyche, in terms of its ability to achieve, in terms of its coaching and its player personnel, and in terms of its management group’s risk-averse nature. So I am trying to remain optimistic that the team’s going to make a good run down the stretch here, and that whatever happens will be positive for the team’s short and long-term future.

Some of this shit is deja vu all over again, sure, but I don’t think that doing more than issuing constructive criticism of what’s been going on does much of anything. I’m frustrated, even though the infamous Mike Babcock once wisely said that “frustration is a waste of time,” and I want to see the team do better.

But, again, we are where we are at, and I’m going to support these Red Wings as best I can while not agreeing with everything that the players, coach or management choose to do on and off the ice.

I think that the team should be playing better, and that the roster can be built better. But that’s my opinion, and I still understand that as a partisan and blogger, I do not have any plan or sway as to what the players, coach or management group choose to do.

That’s how the fan-team marriage works. And sometimes it sucks, and sometimes it gets strained, and sometimes people walk away or get divorces from their team due to impatience, anger, frustration, etc.

I’m not willing to go there, but I’m also not going to tell you “how to fan,” and if you share my frustration, but also my unconditional passion for Red Wings hockey…

Welcome to the club, folks. Expressing our frustration with “where the team is at” is good and healthy, but I really don’t believe that complaining for the sake of complaining does much to move the needle.

I hope you can respect that point of view as I respect your disparate points of view.

And here’s hoping that the Wings buck the odds and make a playoff run.

Thanks for your time.