To say this has been a difficult offseason for the Detroit Red Wings would be a colossal understatement.
Missing ten straight posteasons, enduring three straight March collapses and having their home grown captain demand a trade wasn’t enough. Now, the team is nearly a month away from training camp looking for a new general manager to relieve Steve Yzerman.
Now, to be fair, Yzerman inherited a dumpster fire of a roster and farm system when he returned to the team he won three Stanley Cups with on the ice. However, he was unable to steer the ship into calmer waters and with seven non-playoff seasons in Detroit. There were obviously more bad moves than good moves during his tenure. But beyond that simple ledger, there were a few moves that proved so disastrous that it set the franchise’s direction back significantly on its own.
The Jake Walman giveaway still hinders Detroit
This was a move that Red Wings fans threw their arms up at the beginning. Two years later, it remains just as baffling.
After acquiring him seemingly as a throw-in to getting Oskar Sundqvist in their trade deadline deal that sent Nick Leddy to St. Louis, Jake Walman proved to be found money in two-plus seasons for the Red Wings. He proved a steady defense partner for Moritz Seider who could keep up with the rush and move the puck while endearing fans with his “Griddy” goal celebrations in key moments.
In his two full seasons with the Red Wings, Walman chipped in 39 points on 21 goals and 18 assists in 126 games. Beyond the counting stats, Walman posted a strong +7.3 rating in expected goals for in 2022-23, but dropped to -15.4 in 2023-24. Still, after generally strong seasons in a high-leverage role opposite Seider, Yzerman shockingly sent him packing along with a second-round pick to San Jose prior to the 2024-25 campaign.
Walman rebounded with the Sharks, putting up 32 points in 50 games. He was eventually traded to Edmonton for a first-round pick at the trade deadline. After that, he chipped in eight more points in 15 games for the Oilers before adding 10 more in 22 playoff games as Edmonton advanced to the 2025 Stanley Cup Finals. He is now beginning a seven-year extension he signed with the Oilers for $7 million a year.
The Red Wings have yet to adequately replace Walman’s puck moving ability on the left side beyond Simon Edvinsson. While Edvinsson and Seider have at times performed as the best defense pairing in the NHL, the lack of depth is felt keenly without Walman. As the team plays veterans like Ben Chiarot in roles far above their capacity, moving Walman still comes down as a major error in judgment by Yzerman. What makes this worse is watching San Jose net a second-round pick, a first-round pick and a prospect out of trading for and trading away Walman in a nine-month span.
Drafting and never using Sebastian Cossa was a major setback
Sebastian Cossa is a curious case of external versus internal perception. Externally, Cossa’s size, AHL performance and draft billing has him ranked as a top-three goaltending prospect and top-20 overall performer on some lists. Internally, despite the effort the team went through to get him and how much they’ve seen him play, the team wasn’t comfortable promoting him full-time to the NHL this season, ultimately trading him away to Utah for a first-round pick during the NHL Draft.
While moving on from Cossa may prove to be the correct call by Yzerman, he has now become a symbol of the front office’s belief that they were the smartest people in the room. Drafting Moritz Seider sixth overall and seeing him win a Calder Trophy was a shot in the arm for the front office’s scouting acumen, but there were a lot of things that went into this pick for Yzerman.
Detroit already entered the 2021 draft with two first-round picks, using their higher selection on Simon Edvinsson. They also held pick 23 from Washington after dealing them Anthony Mantha at the trade deadline that year and were on the prowl for a franchise goalie. In a similar vein to Yzerman’s Andrei Vasilevskiy pick when he was with Tampa Bay, he made a trade with Dallas to swap spots in the round, moving up to 15th. The consensus among draft experts was that Jesper Walstedt was the top goaltender in the class, and he was there for the taking. Yzerman loved Cossa’s size and took him instead while Wallstedt was taken five picks later by Minnesota. Dallas used the pick that Detroit would have had on center Wyatt Johnston, who just netted over 40 goals last season.
Entering this past season, Wallstedt had only played in five NHL games while Cossa had a single relief appearance. However, Wallstedt broke through with a 2.61 goals against average and .915 save percentage in 35 games for the Wild this season. Cossa stayed in the AHL for the third-straight season and was eventually pushed out of the starter’s crease by Michal Postava in the playoffs this year.
There were rumors earlier this offseason that Detroit may be dealing Cossa for a roster player, but ultimately they turned him into first-round pick forward JP Hurlbert instead. The Red Wings still have highly regarded goalie prospect Trey Augustine in the system beginning his first pro season this year, but considering Wallstedt and Johnston's development, it’s hard to see the results of taking Cossa as anything less than a disaster.
Sitting out trade deadlines kept Detroit on the outside looking in
Beyond those two decisions above, the Red Wings were still knocking on the playoff door in the past three seasons, hoping to get a boost from the trade deadline. While Yzerman did make a pair of moves to bolster this past year’s team, it proved insufficient to end their playoff drought.
Before this season, Yzerman’s lack of moves to give the team a boost in 2024 and 2025 in particular were a tough pill to swallow given those teams held playoff spots in March and missed out. Here are a few notable moves that teams made at those trade deadlines:
2024
- The Carolina Hurricanes acquired Jake Guentzel for two non-first round picks, Michael Bunting and a handful of mediocre prospects.
- The Vegas Golden Knights acquired Noah Hanifin for a first-round pick and some minor leaguers.
- Vegas acquired Tomas Hertl for a first-round pick.
2025
- The Dallas Stars acquired Mikael Granlund and Codi Ceci for a first-round pick and fourth-round pick.
- The Ottawa Senators acquired Fabian Zetterlund for a second-round pick and mid-range prospects.
- Florida acquired Brad Marchand for a second-round pick.
Many of these deals were rentals at the time, but they were the types of moves that added much needed depth or an impact scorer to a team looking to make a push. Jake Guentzel ended up leaving Carolina, for example, but netted 25 points in 17 games and nine more in 11 playoff contests. Granlund chipped in 21 points in 31 games with Dallas and helped them reach the conference finals with 10 more in 18 playoff games while Ceci added more defensive depth to the roster.
While those teams that dealt a first-round pick were already contenders looking for a piece to push them over the top, those are the types of moves that add credibility to a team trying to establish themselves as a team that is serious about winning. It’s not hard to make a parallel between Yzerman being gun shy at the trade deadline (which Larkin publicly lamented in 2025) and the few top free agents such as Nikolaj Ehlers not even answering Yzerman’s call the following summer.
The team instead held their 2024 and 2025 first-round picks and selected Michael Brandsegg-Nygard (15th overall) and Carter Bear (13th overall), respectively. While both are showing promise and Brandsegg-Nygard has already logged NHL games, will they prove worth the theoretical downstream credibility boost that adding rentals like Jake Guentzel in 2024 or Mikael Granlund in 2025? Even going beyond those rentals, Detroit is probably in better shape today if they put together a similar deal that Vegas did to land Tomas Hertl (assuming he would have waived his no trade clause to come) to secure a long-term second-line center.
While it is understandable to try to build the team for the long haul through prospects and strong drafting, at some point, the players who are trying to get the team to make that step forward need tending to. The lack of moves prior to this past season contribute to the crossroads the franchise finds itself in today.
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