All 3 of Tampa, Gourde, and Johnson say no

I agree neither Johnson or Gourde are waiving for Detroit.

Not to mention that Steve Yzerman doesn't want their terrible contracts. He gave an interview where he stated he didn't want to acquire players with that much term and cap hits going forward. If he really wants Sergachev, he can throw out an offer sheet that will cause Tampa a lot of pain to match (costing either a 1st and 3rd or 1st, 2nd, and 3rd). Even the treat of an offer sheet could prove to drive the price of a trade for him down. It happened with Tampa and JT Miller recently.

Using Evolving Hockey’s contract projection tool for an $81.5M cap hit, the anticipated deal for Sergachev will be around 6 years at a $6.5M cap hit.

So the one thing Detroit doesnt want is to just less assets. Giving 2 or 3 picks to acquire serg in an offersheet isn't gonna help really. He's good but not at the expense of 3 low picks. The trade seems nuts it adds 10 million before you even sign serg. You can argue Johnson's worth his deal but his stats are slowly declining and gourde might boost his with more and better ice time in detroit but I'd still rather do a deal like that than give up a 1st 2nd and 3rd offer sheeting him.

Given the expected top 5 pick in 2021 draft, I don't think they would offer sheet him either. But Yzerman did use the threat of publicly talking about an offer sheet to weaken a division rival only to sign another player. He also used that ploy against SJ for Karlsson. What's to say another GM won't do the same and drive down the cost of acquiring Serg? Remember Tampa has to shed salary somehow and has several players with NTC's. Johnson and Goude wouldn't waive them to come to Detroit or any other rebuilding club given their salary and Florida's tax treatment of that plus Tampa's Cup contention. If the offer sheet will come from a bottom of the draft team it's really like getting a 2nd, 3rd, and 4th that's what will drive down the price to acquire him--that's my point there.

Detroit has no business making OS's when they could be trading the No.1 overall.

Gourde and Johnson aren't worth their 10.1m cap hit now and won't be worth it in the future with their term on their deals.
Wings could spend 16m or so a lot better....not necessarily this year but soon.

You could make an argument that Sergachev could make this team much closer to playoff contention that the 1OA in 2021. It would definitely depend on what growth of Hronek, Seider, Zadina, and probably 1 more forward piece (either growth in a F, or trade/FA forward) for the 3rd line. I don't think DET would do it (and I think TBL would give up Cirelli to match an offer for Sergachev), but it's not out of the realm of possibility that DET would be significantly better with Sergachev.

Sergachev/Hronek
DDK/Seider
Cholo/Nemeth
Lindstrom or Biega as #7

It definitely deepens the D pool, and puts a true top line Dman on the team (Hronek I think will get to be a #2 guy eventually as well, but Sergachev is already there).