Author: George Malik

Updated 6x at 2:03 PM: From TSN’s Bob McKenzie:

Working free agent day on Wednesday. Let’s see if I remember how to do this: Marc Staal returning to DET on a one-year deal. @TSNHockey— Bob McKenzie (@TSNBobMcKenzie) July 25, 2021

Update: The Red Wings confirm:

UPDATE: The Detroit #RedWings today agreed to terms with defenseman Marc Staal on a one-year contract extension. pic.twitter.com/ajdvbGxDq1— Detroit Red Wings (@DetroitRedWings) July 25, 2021

I have no problem with a Staal extension. The Red Wings and Staal liked the fit and finish, he’s probably coming back affordably, and that pretty much takes care of the Wings’ need for a left-shot defenseman on the 3rd pair.

Done, done, done.— George Malik (@georgemalik) July 25, 2021

Khan:

#RedWings sign the left-shooting D-man they were seeking. Blue line now consists of LD: Leddy, DeKeyser, Staal; RD: Hronek, Stecher, Lindstrom, Seider. https://t.co/QGi0QX324Z— Ansar Khan (@AnsarKhanMLive) July 25, 2021

Appears to be in the $2 million range.— Ansar Khan (@AnsarKhanMLive) July 25, 2021

Marc Staal’s extension with #RedWings is 1 year x $2 million. Full no-move clause. @DFOHockey— Frank Seravalli (@frank_seravalli) July 25, 2021

TSN report:

Staal, 34, was set to become an unrestricted free agent on Wednesday.

He spent last season with the Red Wings after playing with the New York Rangers for the first 13 seasons of his NHL career. He was dealt to Detroit last September and is coming off a six-year, $34.2 million contract.

He had three goals and seven assists in 56 games last season.

More: The No-Move Clause doesn’t bug me a bit:

I don’t mean to belabor the point, but I really did find Steve Yzerman and Kris Draper’s comments regarding balancing the concept of icing a more competitive team this season with continuing to develop for the future.

The Detroit News’s Ted Kulfan filed a noontime article discussing just that aspect of the Yzerman and Draper post-draft press conferences, and this quote from Draper is worth noting:

“When I’m walking into Little Caesars Arena, there’s a sense of pride to watching the Red Wings play,” Draper said. “Those moves, and moving out those picks to bring in players we brought in, it made sense to our organization.

“They made sense. We were able to bring in Nick Leddy, and he’s going to be a great mentor for all of your young defensemen. He can skate and the last couple of years going on long playoff runs with the New York Islanders, it just made sense to bring Nick Leddy in.

“And Nedeljkovic, it was a position we were looking for and we were able to get a 25-year-old goaltender that was pretty impressive this year and stepped up in big moments in the playoffs.”

Continued…

DetroitRedWings.com’s Josh Berenter filed a story about the Red Wings’ two-day draft haul this morning, duly noting that Red Wings GM Steve Yzerman and director of amateur scouting Kris Draper believe that the eight prospects they’ve drafted are at the start of their journey toward (hopefully, anyway) an NHL future:

“We’re trying to find good kids. Solid character kids that have drive and motivation,” Yzerman said to wrap up the draft. “Ultimately, we think they’re all competitive kids. We think they’re all motivated and driven, and time will tell.

“But I guess what would be in common, and we’re trying to do that every year, is draft kids that are good, solid kids that we think have a chance to play in the league and are really driven and motivated.”

Red Wings director of amateur scouting Kris Draper agreed with Yzerman in his optimism for Detroit’s 2021 Draft haul. Draper said he’s excited to see these players compete in the 2021 Prospects Tournament this fall and continue developing as they strive to don the Winged Wheel at Little Caesars Arena in the future.

“We feel good about today. We felt we drafted in a lot of areas that we needed,” Draper said. “You talk about the character of the prospects that we brought in, the talent of the prospects, and now they all know the work starts now, and that’s something that’s been always true. Once they’re named, selected and they’re part of the organization, away they go.”

Continued

The Detroit Red Wings aren’t going to contend for a Stanley Cup in the immediate future, but Red Wings GM Steve Yzerman has made some intriguing comments over the past couple of days, suggesting that the team he’s building must play more competitive hockey this upcoming season for the sake of lifting a weight from the shoulders of Detroit’s core players.

For the sake of bolstering the Wings’ immediate stead, Detroit surrendered 2 draft picks, acquiring Nick Leddy and Alex Nedeljkovic in the process; on Friday and saturday, Detroit made a total of 5 more draft pick swaps in order to trade up and pick both Sebastian Cossa and Shai Buium.

As a result, the Wings ended up utilizing only 8 of an original set of 12 picks to take players in this year’s draft. Yzerman isn’t exactly thrilled with having to surrender draft picks, as the Free Press’s Helene St. James notes…

“I hate giving up draft picks,” Yzerman said. “I feel every draft pick, regardless of a first-rounder or seventh-rounder, is hope. It’s hope for a Henrik Zetterberg or Pavel Datsyuk or Sergei Fedorov or Nicklas Lidstrom or you name it. So I hate giving up picks. I love accumulating them and keeping them and using them.

“We still ended up with eight selections, and we did a lot of things with the picks that we had, so it does give you options.”

But the Wings’ GM made sure to emphasize the fact that he wants to make the Wings a more competitive team, both now and in the future, first after the Nedeljkovic trade, and then after Friday and Saturday’s picks:

Yzerman is balancing stoking the rebuild with improving the current team. He knows how hard it is to build a competitor — he waited 14 years as a player to lift the Stanley Cup, and that was eight years after a draft that yielded Lidstrom and Fedorov. He also knows how miserable it is to lose game after game, and doesn’t want his young core to be buried under such despair.

“I feel strongly that it’s important that we try to be competitive, so that cost us,” he said.

St. James continues (paywall), discussing the Wings’ latest draft picks, as well as the potential of the Wings’ 2019 and 2020 draft classes.

As for the Wings’ desire to improve its current lot in hockey life, the fan in me understands that being a little less competitive in terms of high draft picks is, in my opinion, the next necessary step in the rebuilding process.

For better or worse, the Wings haven’t been a very competitive team over the past two seasons, and that’s definitely worn upon the Wings’ current players. Their record doesn’t inspire the fan base, nor does it sell tickets, frankly.

There is something to be said to rounding the turn from draft lottery powerhouse toward somewhat competitive NHL team, for the players and fans’ sake, and it appears that the Wings’ GM is finally ready to shift the franchise out of neutral.

How will he and the Wings’ coaches and management accomplish said task? By balancing the necessary folding of prospects into the lineup with some aggressive work on the free agent front, both in terms of re-signing 8 restricted free agents and attempting to add to the roster on the unrestricted free agent front.

Red Wings GM Steve Yzerman and Kris Draper spoke with the media at length after the conclusion of the 2021 NHL Draft, discussing Detroit’s eight draft picks at length, with an emphasis on the Wings’ Day 2 haul…

During tonight’s Tigers game, Bally Sports Detroit’s John Keating gave the 2-minute version of Yzerman and Draper’s remarks…

The Athletic’s draft gurus, Corey Pronman and Scott Wheeler, weighed in as to the draft hauls made by each and every one of the NHL’s 32 teams over the course of the past two days, and Red Wings beat writer Max Bultman joined the chorus over the course of Saturday evening.

Sharing what I can from a subscription-based website is tricky, but I think it’s okay to offer this from Pronman regarding the Red Wings’ picks, who he breaks down on an individual basis…

Detroit Red Wings: B

As readers may know by now, I’m not the biggest Simon Edvinsson fan, even though I think he will be a great NHL player. As readers also know, I love Sebastian Cossa. Between them, I think the Red Wings will get two important long-term players. Shai Buium also has a solid chance to be a regular NHL defenseman, while some of their later picks have chances, too. I think Detroit gets two very good players from this draft with a chance for three regulars.

Again, Pronman breaks down the Wings’ 2021 draft class in detail (subscriber-only);

The Athletic’s Scott Wheeler deems the Red Wings an “overtime loser” for their second-day draft haul, suggesting that the Wings made too many reaches for players who may have been available to them without having to sacrifice extra draft picks…

The Free Press’s Helene St. James profiles Red Wings 33rd overall 2021 draft pick Shai Buium, a big defenseman whose family has taken a circuitous route from Israel to Californian hockey rinks:

Buium, 18, is the son of Israeli immigrants. His mother   was a professional basketball player in Israel; she and her husband, Iulian, moved to southern California, where he ran his own heating and cooling company. Sports wasn’t a priority in the family until Shai made it one. He played Triple-A hockey in Los Angeles, using that as a  springboard to Shattuck-St. Mary’s prep school, a hockey hotbed in Minnesota. He split the 2020-21 season between that school and the USHL, recording 26 points in 50 games with the Sioux City Musketeers.

“I went from San Diego to playing in L.A. to playing at Shattuck-St. Mary’s in Minnesota to Sioux City and now I’m going to go play in Denver,” Buium said. “It’s definitely been a good journey.”

Buium is committed to playing next season at the University of Denver, which is home to the Wings’ 2019 second-round pick, Antti Tuomisto. Carter Mazur, a Wings’ 2021 third-rounder at No. 70, is headed to Denver, too.

“I probably watched Shai early in November at Shattuck,” [Kris] Draper said. “I wasn’t even sure (who) he was, I was watching a couple other prospects. I was asking who is this defenseman. The size and the hockey sense really stood out for me.

“Shattuck ended up shutting down, and he went to Sioux City. He was playing in third pair, and as soon as he decided to spend the rest of the year in the USHL, he started taking on more responsibility and played in all situations. He just kept getting better. Whenever we saw him, he got better. That was intriguing.”

Continued;

Update: But wait, there’s more, from the Detroit News’s Ted Kulfan:

The Red Wings used their final pick of the 2021 NHL Draft on Windsor Spitfires center Pasquale Zito, who didn’t even play this past season as the Ontario Hockey League chose not to play due to the coronavirus pandemic. As a result, he was drafted 166th overall, but Zito told the Windsor Star’s Jim Parker that he’s got a bit of a beef with landing in the sixth round:

“Proud to be part of the Detroit Red Wings and they get all my love, but I’ve got a big chip on my shoulder,” Zito said after the draft. “I’m going in next year to show a lot of people I should have been a lot higher and I’m pretty sure I’m going to be the biggest steal of the 2021 draft.”

Zito was one of three members of the Spitfires taken in the draft. Forward Wyatt Johnston went to the Dallas Stars in the first round with the 23^rd pick overall, which had been acquired in a trade with Detroit. Russian defenceman Daniil Sobolev, who has yet to suit up for the Spitfires after being taken in the 2020 CHL Import Draft, went to the Montreal Canadiens in the fifth round with the 142^nd pick overall.

Zito points to a 2020-21 OHL season wiped out by the COVID-19 pandemic. While nearly every other player outside the OHL had stats to build their draft resume, many players like Zito only had their reputation as a 16-year-old rookie in 2019-20 to lean on.

“It was a lot of emotions for sure,” said the 6-foot, 175-pound Zito, who was Windsor’s second-round pick in 2019. “I’m still upset I didn’t get a year under my belt to show scouts what I’m made out of, but again I’m thankful to be part of the Detroit Red Wings’ organization.”

Continued

The Red Wings posted a press release detailing their 2nd through 7th round selections from the 2021 NHL Draft:

RED WINGS DRAFT SIX PLAYERS ON SECOND DAY OF 2021 NHL ENTRY DRAFT  … Four Forwards and Two Defensemen Added to Detroit’s Prospect Pool on Saturday …

DETROIT – The Detroit Red Wings today selected six players during the second day of the 2021 NHL Entry Draft. The Red Wings began the day by trading up in the second round to draft defenseman Shai Buium (36th overall), then selected left wing Carter Mazur in the third round (70th overall), center Red Savage (114th overall), center Liam Dower Nilsson (134th overall), defenseman Oscar Plandowski (155th overall) and center Pasquale Zito (166th overall).

For easy viewing, the Red Wings have posted separate clips of GM Steve Yzerman and director of amateur scouting Kris Draper’s respective post-draft press conferences: