DetroitRedWings.com’s Jonathan Mills posted a 2nd-day-of-the-draft wrap-up which discusses the Red Wings’ 2025 NHL Draft haul, noting GM Steve Yzerman’s draft philosophy…
“We don’t necessarily draft by position,” Red Wings Executive Vice President and General Manager Steve Yzerman said via Zoom on Saturday afternoon. “We always try, at this stage of where we’re at, to get the best prospect and we put them in that order…We’re happy with what we were able to accomplish here in the Draft. We like all the kids that we got. We’re excited about Carter [Bear] in the first round, that type of player who will fit in very well for us – a left winger. He’ll be good.
“The remainder of the group here were all good prospects. We were able to get a couple of defensemen, several forwards… We add another goaltender…We’ll see if he can develop over time as well. Again, our scouts feel good about it. We were able to address some needs as far as depth in the prospect pool. We’ll try to do our best and be patient, develop them, help them along the way to become professional players and hopefully play for the Red Wings.”
As well as this regarding the Petr Mrazek-for-John Gibson trade…
Yzerman said the Red Wings are counting on the 31-year-old Gibson, who has appeared in 506 games with Anaheim since 2013-14, to “give us quality starts and upgrade our team in net.”
“John has been, throughout the course of his career, a proven starter and a good starter in the NHL,” Yzerman said. “As Anaheim’s gone through its rebuilding process, I think probably affected his play a little bit. And as their team gets better and they have a good young goaltender in [Lukas] Dostal, John was looking for more opportunity to play.”
And, after profiling the Red Wings’ 2nd-day picks, Mills offers a look forward to this week’s Summer Development Camp at Little Caesars Arena:
Now, the newly drafted prospects will pack their bags and head to Detroit, where they, along with players who were selected by the Red Wings as well as signed free-agent prospects and undrafted free-agent invitees, will participate in 2025 Development Camp from June 30-July 3 at BELFOR Training Center inside Little Caesars Arena.
“There’s so much that we want to offer them and there’s so much information out there,” Draper said. “We think that we do a real good job in educating all these young players and give them something.”
