In a bit of a surprising move, the Red Wings placed Danny Dekeyser on waivers Monday.

Alex Galchenyuk (CAR), Paul Byron (MTL), Par Lindholm, Danny Dekeyser and Gabriel Carlsson (CBJ) are on waivers.

— Chris Johnston (@reporterchris) February 14, 2021

Dekeyser played 10 games this season, and did not look as good as Detroit had hoped he would after a long layoff due to injury.

He has one year remaining on a 5M AAV deal. Putting him on waivers means that the team either wants to send him to the AHL or to place him on the taxi squad. Playing a conditioning stint in the AHL would not require waivers.

We need more information to be able to see what Detroit’s plans are for the 30 year old defenseman, but this is definitely not what anyone in Detroit wanted going into this season.

Unfortunately, it’s an easy decision to justify based on his play this season:

Via HockeyViz

It's been some time since DeKeyser has been an effective shutdown defenseman and you have to wonder how much of his struggles the last couple of years are related to his back pic.twitter.com/cwEs9KItqD

— Prashanth Iyer (@iyer_prashanth) February 14, 2021