Happy Monday, friends. We’re entering the “dead” part of the NHL offseason – Meaning there simply won’t be much news to talk about. We have a couple of items to get caught up on, so we’ll keep it brief today.
Before we get into this, I know that a large portion of the fanbase is a little, well, angry to say the least. Please don’t take it out on each other. Keep our disagreements civil and the conversations constructive.
Elliotte Friedman recently reported on 32 Thoughts that had some tidbits regarding Detroit and the players they were looking at in free agency. Friedman said the Wings were in on Nikolaj Ehlers, but the player didn’t have much interest in meeting with the team. Friedman also stated that Detroit looked at Viktor Arvidsson and Mason Marchment as potential trade targets, but obviously those did not materialize.
Frustrating to say the least, but this is a reality you face when your team hasn’t made the playoffs in so long. Detroit is simply not a “free agent destination” right now. Hasn’t been for a while. Blame whoever you want, I don’t really care. In my opinion, this isn’t just a “one person to blame” situation. The culprit(s) is/are long-reaching. It goes back years.
However, Friedman did say that Steve Yzerman is betting his reputation on drafting and developing. Handing out 5+ years to free agents isn’t going to happen as often as many would like. “Unless he can hit a big home run, and this year it would have been a guy like Ehlers, he’s not gonna do that any more with four and five year terms,” Friedman said.
It is what it is. I tip my hat to Yzerman for sticking to what he believes will work in the bigger picture, but it’s hard to imagine a bigger picture when the last time the team made the playoffs was almost 10 years ago. Still, I am choosing to remain optimistic.
Finally, there was some belief that maybe Yzerman would get into the offer sheet business this offseason. One of the names that made sense was defenseman Bowen Byram. That’s no longer a possibility since Buffalo has elected salary arbitration with Byram. There are some other names out there that could be offer sheet targets, but none that I am jumping out of my seat for. I think any areas of need for the Wings will be addressed internally or perhaps through a PTO later this summer.
So there’s that. We’ll see. Have a nice week, friends.
