Tyler Bertuzzi is headed to Boston.
The Red Wings have traded the 28-year-old forward to the Bruins in exchange for a 2024 top-10-protected 1st round pick and a 2025 4th round pick. The move was first reported by Elliotte Friedman and Pierre LeBrun. The Red Wings will retain half of Bertuzzi’s remaining salary.
This seemed to be a make-or-break season for Bertuzzi, who’s set to be an unrestricted free agent this summer. Injuries to both hands prevented him from building on his 30-goal, 62-point performance from last year. And given Dylan Larkin’s contract was the clear priority, and the fact Yzerman and Lalonde are starting to transition more responsibility to the younger core, Bertuzzi always seemed like the odd man out in the Wings’ rebuilding question. The only question was if Yzerman was going to keep him around for a potential playoff push or not.
Bert, meanwhile, should be a perfect fit for the Bruins. He’ll likely be playing a more-well-suited middle six role with less scoring responsibility while still being able to use his physical presence to create space and force mistakes. Bertuzzi also has that feistiness that’s become a trademark for Boston over the past handful of decades.
The Red Wings now have five picks in the first two rounds of the upcoming draft, as well as two first rounders in next year’s draft. That gives Yzerman a wild amount of flexibility to accelerate the rebuild, either by using those extra picks as capital in a trade, or by simply using them to add more weapons to an already-stacked prospect pipeline.
