If you’ve been reading the signs, trading away Ville Husso freed up some cap space for the Red Wings, and that might just point to a blockbuster deal in the making for Steve Yzerman and Company. Yeah, I know there are contingents of fans who are for and against a blockbuster, but personally, I’m for it. At least now.
Why? As Todd McLellan proved, the Red Wings are too good of a hockey team to allow another trade deadline to come and go with no moves made. Last season, we saw that, and look at what happened.
Yeah, that won’t be the case this time around, as Yzerman is way too smart to make the same mistake twice. That said, expect him to go after a big name at the trade deadline, and at this point, I wouldn’t even rule out Mikko Rantanen.
Red Wings are gearing up for a big trade near the deadline
While I highly doubt the Hurricanes will trade Mikko Rantanen at the moment, it’s becoming clearer that he and Carolina don’t seem to see eye-to-eye on a contract extension. Enter Steve Yzerman and the Red Wings, who have $13.65 million in deadline cap space as I write this.
At this point, Rantanen would slot in nicely, so it’s not like the Wings can’t afford him. Should Rantanen and the Canes not get a deal done by March 1st, March 3rd at the latest, those trade rumors should start heating up, and it wouldn’t surprise me if the Wings were mentioned.
This is, of course, assuming they don’t make a trade in the meantime. So, as you probably deciphered here, all the pieces must fall into place for this to occur, but it’s no longer a long shot, that much conventional wisdom is telling all of us.
Cost of Mikko Rantanen will still be high despite recent struggles
So far, we’ve seen Rantanen play in seven games with the Hurricanes, with one goal and three points overall. For a player who had 64 points and 25 goals earlier this season for the Colorado Avalanche, this is yet another major red flag telling us that Rantanen probably isn’t the best of fits in Raleigh, and he might know it.
So, it wouldn’t surprise me to see Rantanen continually reject offers from the Hurricanes regardless of how luxurious they are. If he somehow made it to the Red Wings, I’m not saying he’d be any more than a rental at this point, but putting him on the same team as players like Dylan Larkin, Alex DeBrincat, and Lucas Raymond would give the Wings a top-five group of forwards in hockey when playoff hockey arrives before the actual postseason itself.
That said, I would only see Steve Yzerman making this trade happen if he thought he could bring in Rantanen long-term. For a team that hasn’t made the playoffs in a while, trading away what would surely be a lot of assets and some current talent for a rental, at this point, makes little sense. Still, we can’t rule anything out.