I’ll disagree with the last part. He passed on skill to fill need with Seider. He did try and trade down but couldn’t swing it. You are 100% right on work ethic though. He is demanding a level that is impressive. Nice observation
- Jeremy Laura

One thing I always admired about Yzerman was his pragmatism. At times, it can ruffle some feathers (Marty St. Louis affair for example), but ultimately Steve is trying to build a championship team of dynasty proportions. He is always thinking about the long game. And judging so far by what he has done in Detroit, he seems to be staying true to character. He is not rushing things.

I expect the hammer will come down soon with some of Detroit's problematic contracts. Yzerman has a way of working sorcery with contracts and managing assets.

One thing I always admired about Yzerman was his pragmatism. At times, it can ruffle some feathers (Marty St. Louis affair for example), but ultimately Steve is trying to build a championship team of dynasty proportions. He is always thinking about the long game. And judging so far by what he has done in Detroit, he seems to be staying true to character. He is not rushing things.

I expect the hammer will come down soon with some of Detroit's problematic contracts. Yzerman has a way of working sorcery with contracts and managing assets.
- GalacticStone

The hammer came down in Tampa (ie buying out Vinny as an example) because the window to win was near. Detroit is different. There is no window to win opening soon. Howard, Franzen, Ericsson, Daley are all gone. Green was traded. Nielsen has 2 more years and Abby has 3. Those are really the only two ugly deals. You just wait them out. Although I would waive Abby just to free up a roster spot for an actual NHL player. But the cap isn't the problem in Detroit. It's the total lack of talent.

This could be a reach, but I believe this club has lost more games by 2+ goals, than any team has lost by any margin this season. So..... Why not look forward to the draft. Big Laffie could be yours sooner than later and this kid will not disappoint!

Another reason to celebrate, Ericsson/Daley/Howard and their 11.5M AAV dead cap space will be walking out the door
- bikeguy99

What a threesome right there? Is there any other team that has a worse set making that kind of money ?

This could be a reach, but I believe this club has lost more games by 2+ goals, than any team has lost by any margin this season. So..... Why not look forward to the draft. Big Laffie could be yours sooner than later and this kid will not disappoint!

Another reason to celebrate, Ericsson/Daley/Howard and their 11.5M AAV dead cap space will be walking out the door
- bikeguy99

You know, this gave me another itch to research something.

Detroit won 1 game by 3 or more goals this year, and lost 30 games by 3 or more goals, for a winning percentage of .032 in 3-goal games.

Put another way: 44 percent of Red Wings games were blowouts this season (31 out of 71), and the Red Wings won only 3 percent of those blowouts.

In all of NHL history you need to look really hard to find teams who were clearly worse than that. Really there are only 3 clear examples of teams with a worse percentage in 3 goal games who played a similar proportion of blowouts.

1993 Ottawa Senators: 45% blowouts, won 2.6 percent (1-37 in 84 games)
1931 Philadelphia Quakers: 52% blowouts, won 0 percent (0-23 in 44 games)
1925 Boston Bruins: 43% blowouts, won 0 percent (0-13 in 30 games)

The Wings need young NHL ready D and a young goalie going forward so they should trade their #1 pick with Vancouver for goalie Dipietro, D,s Stecher and Juolevi. All are hungry, talented and cheap. This accelerates the Wings' rebuild by 3 years. Money will be very tight for the American economy for years to come. An NHL owner can't afford to wait 5 years for a re build.