My apologies for the high number of posts, but they’re necessary…
The Free Press’s Helene St. James and the Detroit News’s Ted Kulfan penned articles about the Mrazek trade:
As the Detroit Red Wings commit to rebuilding, goaltender Petr Mrazek was the first domino to drop.
It reveals how far Mrazek’s stock has fallen that all he netted in return from the Philadelphia Flyers was a conditional fourth-round pick in the 2018 NHL draft and a conditional third-round pick in 2019.
“There are not a lot of teams looking for goalies,” Red Wings general manager Ken Holland said Tuesday. “In the last few days Philadelphia had a couple injuries to their goaltenders. The ultimate goal here is to build a team that can compete for a Stanley Cup. Given the rules of the CBA, it really is a draft pick league, and I’m trying to acquire more draft picks and give our scouting staff more opportunities to find the types of players that we need to be to be the team we envision down the road.”
Holland said the fourth-round pick moves to a third-round pick if Philadelphia qualifies for the playoffs and Mrazek wins five games for Philadelphia between now and the end of the year. If the Flyers advance to the final four and Mrazek wins six games in the first two rounds, it moves to a second-round pick. The Wings get a third-round pick on the condition the Flyers re-sign Mrazek.
Kulfan picks the narrative up from there…
Mrazek, 26, is a prospective restricted free agent who the Red Wings likely wouldn’t have qualified at his $4 million salary, which would have made him an unrestricted free agent.
“I can’t read the future,” Holland said. “I have to make decisions before Monday (trade deadline). If he continues to play well, that’s reading the future and there’s not a person on the planet that can read the future. I have to make decisions based on the information on hand. I’ve had an opportunity to watch Petr, we’ve all watched him for a number of years, and he can get on a roll and he’s on a roll right now. I can’t read what the next 25 games will bring. I had to make a decision yesterday and I made that decision.”
A 2010 fifth-round draft pick, Mrazek appeared in 166 games with the Red Wings with a 72-58-20 record.
The Red Wings called up Jared Coreau from Grand Rapids on Tuesday to pair with Jimmy Howard the rest of the regular season.
The Red Wings are expected to deal defenseman Mike Green before the Feb. 26 trade deadline. Green is a potential unrestrictred free agent on July 1. Holland said he will aggressively look to make moves, but said it’s important to have a competitive team, also.
“We have to slowly move young players onto our team, but there has to be a veteran presence to teach those young players how to play,” Holland said. “To be competition for those young players for ice time. I don’t believe in entitlement. I’ve been talking to a lot of teams. I’m open to talking a lot of things. The reality is most of it doesn’t happen. But over the next year or two we need to acquire more futures and we need those futures to get better.”
Ultimately…
“Not a lot of teams are looking for goalies,” general manager Ken Holland said Tuesday morning. “In the last few days Philadelphia had a couple of injuries to their goaltenders. The ultimate goal here is to build a team that can compete for a Stanley Cup. Given the rules of the CBA, it’s really a draft pick league and I’m trying to acquire more draft picks and give our scouting staff more opportunities to find the types of players we need to be the team we envision down the road. This was an opportunity to acquire futures.”