Detroit — There’s more work to do. A lot more.
There’s more money to spend, too. A lot more than most, as a matter of fact.
But for Steve Yzerman, the dilemma here remains the same, more or less.
As the marketplace for NHL free agency opens, it’s still about opportunity cost for the Red Wings general manager, three years into a painful rebuild in Detroit and at least a few more away from any serious Stanley Cup contention.
Yzerman has a shopping list, of course. He jokingly described it as a “beautiful” list a few months ago, before some of the bigger names among pending free agents re-signed with their current teams. But he also has a long-term plan — the “Yzerplan,” as many of us have come to call it amid all the losing — and he’s smart enough to understand there’s a time and place for everything, including spending big in free agency.
“We have cap space,” Yzerman explained last week, before heading to Montreal for the NHL Entry Draft. “But I want to try to use it wisely, because it can disappear in a hurry.”
And once it’s gone, it can be difficult to get back, which is a hard truth that became a reality the Wings are just now putting behind them, six years removed from their last playoff appearance.
Bargain shopping
So even though Detroit is flush with salary-cap space heading into free agency — roughly $31 million, third-most in the NHL — Yzerman still sounds like he’s looking for bargains at this point. That’s probably not what some fans want to hear, and he knows it. (“I can’t sit here forever (saying). ‘Hey, be patient everybody,'” Yzerman admitted back in April.) But keep in mind, when you’re in the basement, some of the top-shelf free agents tend to look the other way, anyway.
“We’ve got some roster spots to fill, so we’ll try,” Yzerman said. “But it’s tough. There’s a lot of competition for players. We’ll see what we can do. We’ve got some areas that we’d like to address and we will. It’s just a question of who and how long and how much.”
It shouldn’t take too long to find out once the market opens at noon Wednesday. Yzerman actually got a head start on things, swinging a trade with St. Louis for goaltender Ville Husso, a pending UFA the Wings quickly signed to a three-year deal. It cost him a third-round pick to jump the line, but given the limited supply of starting-caliber goalies out there, Yzerman didn’t want to take any chances.
As for those other areas he referenced, the Wings desperately need a No. 2 center to take some of the pressure off captain Dylan Larkin. They also could another scoring-line winger — especially with Robby Fabbri rehabbing a torn ACL — and a left-shot defenseman who can help steady things on the blue line.
A player like Carolina’s Vincent Trocheck, a 29-year-old center with an energetic, two-way game, is exactly what new coach Derek Lalonde could use behind Larkin in the lineup. Or perhaps Andrew Copp, the Ann Arbor native who is coming off a career year that saw him dealt from Winnipeg to New York and then flourish in the playoffs for the Rangers.
More: With NHL free agency looming, who could be on the Red Wings’ radar?
But Trocheck will have plenty of leverage with other suitors, even if a homecoming for the Pittsburgh native appears unlikely now that Evgeni Malkin re-signed there late Tuesday. Boston or New York are among the teams that could be interested in his services.
Copp, meanwhile, might be a stretch for Yzerman, who has remained steadfast in his support for term limits in this rebuild. He has yet to sign a player to a contract longer than four years, and the only one that stretched that long (Anthony Mantha) was traded away less than six months later. Copp just turned 28, and with his size and defensive chops he’ll be a winning player into his early 30s. But he could command a six- or seven-year deal at close to $5-6 million annually, which brings us back to Yzerman’s recent comments.
“If there’s a player that can make what we feel would be a significant impact, we’re not afraid to do that in free agency,” he said. “Some of the things we weigh are, ‘OK, how much does that player help today, tomorrow and two, three, four years down the line? And what’s the cost of acquiring that player? Does it make sense for where we hope to be in three or four years? Or are we just spending a whole lot of money and we’re not gonna be much different in 3-4 years, whether that player is here … and is there a more efficient way to get there?”
Bridging the gap
Again, that’s the predicament here: How does Yzerman get from here to there? How does he bridge the gap between a dwindling core of players he inherited — led by Larkin — and the real core of a could-be contender that he began assembling when he selected defenseman Moritz Seider with his first-round pick in 2019.
To add some offensive punch, Yzerman could target a proven vet he trusts like Tampa Bay’s Ondrej Palat, provided the 31-year-old winger — a player Lalonde also knows well — is willing to join a lottery team for a shorter-term payday. Or maybe the Wings will take advantage of the Blackhawks’ latest tank job and sign a center that’d actually fit their own timeline in Dylan Strome, the former No. 3 overall pick who is just 25 and fresh off a career-best 22-goal season.
There are some fourth-line options the Wings could pursue as well, and a young player like Dearborn native Dakota Joshua, who played 30 games in St. Louis last season, could add some needed depth here. Ditto some of the veteran defensemen on the market that won’t qualify as a big splash but should help calm the waters while the Wings wait on that growing prospect pool.
Yzerman has worked methodically to give himself the flexibility he has now. Outside of the entry-level contracts for Seider and Lucas Raymond, there are just a handful of players on the Wings’ current roster with contracts that extend beyond the upcoming season: Jakub Vrana, Fabbri, Michael Rassmussen, Filip Hronek and the newly-acquired Husso.
The expectation is Larkin will join them in the coming months, as the Wings lock up their captain and highest-paid player with another long-term extension. Bertuzzi, coming off a 30-goal season, also is headed into a contract year and says he wants to stay in Detroit, but past negotiations with his camp haven’t gone smoothly, so we’ll see how that plays out.
Some of this cap space will be spent on Detroit’s own free agents as well. Zadina and Jake Walman both received qualifying offers ahead of Tuesday’s deadline, and Yzerman said he’s open to bringing back some of the veteran UFAs in time.
But the Wings’ GM also can use it to help now and later, offering to help other teams offload problematic contracts for a fee in future assets. He did it with Marc Staal in a lesser deal a couple of years ago, acquiring the veteran defenseman from the Rangers along with a second-round pick he later flipped in a 2021 draft-day trade to land goalie Sebastian Cossa. And it wouldn’t be a surprise to see him do it again this summer. The Flyers, for example, are a prominent suitor for top free agent Johnny Gaudreau, but may need to move the final year ($7 million) of James van Riemsdyk’s contract to make that happen.
Whatever happens this week, though. rest assured: There’ll be more to come. A lot more.
john.niyo@detroitnews.com
Twitter: @JohnNiyo