The Red Wings got involved in the trade frenzy Wednesday afternoon, but not in the way everyone was expecting. Detroit helped complete a three-team deal that sends forwards Yanni Gourde and Oliver Bjorkstrand to the Tampa Bay Lightning and a haul of picks to the Seattle Kraken. Here’s how the deal shakes out:
To Tampa: Bjorkstrand, Gourde, 2026 5th round pick, D Kyle Aucoin (unsigned Red Wings prospect)
To Seattle: Eyssimont, 2026 1st round pick, 2027 1st round pick, 2025 2nd round pick
To Detroit: 2025 4th round pick (either Edmonton’s or Tampa’s, whichever is higher)
Both first round picks are top-10 protected, and Seattle will retain 50% of Yanni Gourde’s cap hit. Detroit is retaining 25% of Gourde’s cap hit — which equates to around $1.29 million for this season only.
Detroit now has nine picks in the 2025 NHL Draft and recoups a 4th round pick that was spent in the Robby Fabbri trade. It’s still not clear what else Detroit could do ahead of Friday’s trade deadline, but they use a sliver of cap space to pick up an asset that can be leveraged in a trade, or kept to collect another prospect in the Draft. Kyle Aucoin was a 6th round pick in 2020 for Steve Yzerman. He has two goals and two assists with Harvard this season, and was unlikely to get an entry-level contract with Detroit.
The news comes as we learned earlier today that forward Christian Fischer is being placed on waivers and prospect Carter Mazur is being summoned from the AHL. We are waiting for an official announcement from the team on that.
