Updated at 1:03 AM: MLive’s Ansar Khan asked Red Wings GM Steve Yzerman whether he was tempted to make a trade before the team made Carter Bear their 13th overall pick during the first round of the 2025 NHL Draft, and Khan received a surprising, Ken Holland-style “kick the tires” answer:
“I talked to every team in the league; you have some conversations with some teams that are interested in our assets and vice versa,” Yzerman said. Friday after the first round. “And ultimately, at least up to tonight, haven’t found anything that was a fit for myself or anyone that I’ve been speaking with.”
So, Yzerman used his top pick to select left wing Carter Bear, a goal-scorer with a high complete level. As with most draft picks, it’ll be a few years before he reaches the NHL, but Bear fills an organizational need.
“I think (we’re) getting a very intelligent hockey player, extremely competitive, and at the junior level, he really can score,” Yzerman said. “And we think all of his game translates to the NHL as well. I think our fan base will really take to him when the time comes that he’s playing for the Red Wings because he competes hard. He’s a really good person. We’re very excited about this pick.”
Some fans were hoping Yzerman would use the pick for immediate help. Forwards JJ Peterka (Buffalo to Utah), Evander Kane (Edmonton to Vancouver) and Trevor Zegras (Anaheim to Philadelphia) and defensemen Noah Dobson (Islanders to Montreal) and Charlie Coyle (Colorado to Columbus) were among the more notable players moved this week.
It doesn’t sound as if Yzerman was close to making a deal, prior to or during the first round.
“We had a couple of teams call us as our pick was coming near to see if we would move back,” Yzerman said. “As long as Carter was on the board, we were prepared to stay there. In fact, there’s a couple other players as well, had he been selected that we would have been more than happy with selecting.”
Update: Here’s a bit more from the Detroit News’s John Niyo:
Detroit’s scouts were bullish on Bear, in particular, for obvious reasons. He’s a left-shot winger who scored 40 goals and racked up 82 points in 56 games for Everett in the Western Hockey League last season. Yet what made the 6-foot, 180-pounder an even more enticing prospect is the way he put up those numbers. He’s got the requisite two-way defensive reliability and the hockey IQ the Wings demand, but he also plays with a noticeable edge, whether it’s going hard on the forecheck, winning puck battles or scoring in traffic around the net.
“He’s hard to play against, and he’s tenacious,” Yzerman said. “He plays a style of hockey that is conducive to winning, that good players on good teams do.”
Bear said he models his game after Tampa Bay’s Brandon Hagel, who has emerged as a perennial 30-goal scorer and plays with an edge. And while there’s clearly some high-end skill and plenty of hockey sense here, it’s the rest of it that the Wings are banking on making a difference in their lineup one day.
“I think that’s just me being competitive,” said Bear, who also had nine game-winning goals for the Silvertips this winter. “That’s just me not wanting to lose. I hate losing more than I love winning. So it just all comes down to I want it more. Every time I step on the ice, I want it more than every player on the ice. That’s my mindset when I go on the ice and that’s how my motor always goes.”
