Joined: Jul. 2020
Posts: 1,021
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So my over-riding thought is that you're coming from a different angle than Yzerman (seemingly) and the fanbase want to go. Fundamentally Detroit's pipeline is deep, but is missing that high end franchise talent.
Their needs are therefore high end talent. If you look at their drafting last year you can kinda see this. Their depth picks are high risk, high reward. As such, the main need is time, either for a draft lottery win for Wright, Lambert, Bedard, Michkov etc, or for an already drafted player to emerge.
While waiting for time, you're not really going after big ticket UFAs, so there will be some dead cap, might as well get assets for taking on bad contracts, no reason to give up assets to get rid of bad contracts. Furthermore, this affords Yzerman the ability to be patient with roster moves, the Bertuzzi trade may be ok value wise, maybe a little low, but doesn't make sense for Detroit, if im trading with Pittsburgh, I want a 1st in 22 or 23, because they could easily fall off, be a lottery team, and the asset could become an elite talent.