For the first time since Steve Yzerman became the Detroit Red Wings’ general manager (GM) back in 2019, he is looking to buy at the trade deadline. The Red Wings are in the thick of the playoff race in the Eastern Conference and have a good shot at securing home ice in the first round of the playoffs. Detroit could use reinforcements, and it appears Yzerman intends to provide them.
This obviously isn’t Yzerman’s first trade deadline with the Red Wings, it’s just the first time he’s looking to add rather than subtract. Looking back, there were several key moves made by this GM to get the Red Wings to where they are today, proving that addition by subtraction is possible.
With that in mind, here are three of the most consequential trades made by Yzerman in his tenure as the Red Wings’ GM.
Filip Hronek to Vancouver
The move to trade defenseman Filip Hronek to the Vancouver Canucks back in 2023 was one of the more surprising trades of Yzerman’s tenure. He was a 25-year-old right-handed defenseman with a penchant for creating offense, even with the anemic Red Wings teams of the early rebuilding years. He was the team’s second-best defenseman behind Moritz Seider, and he still had one more season on his contract at a $4.4 million cap hit.
The Red Wings didn’t need to trade him, but they did anyway.
They did because the Canucks put forth an offer that would ultimately allow the Red Wings to shape their blue line for the future. Vancouver traded a first-round pick, originally acquired from the New York Islanders, and a second-round pick to the Red Wings in exchange for Hronek and a fourth-round pick.
Hronek has gone on to become a key part of the Canucks’ blue line and is on the shortlist to become the next captain in Vancouver. The pick the Red Wings acquired turned out to be the 17th pick in the 2023 draft, and they used it to select Swedish defenseman Axel Sandin-Pellikka.
Sandin-Pellikka made his rookie debut this season and has been with the Red Wings since the start of the season. He has almost exclusively played on the team’s second pairing, and the organization hopes he can develop into a player as good as Hronek currently is, if not better. Hronek made his NHL debut at 21 years of age and Sandin-Pellikka debuted at 20, so the latter is already off to a good start.
Related: Red Wings Mock Trade Deadline: 3 Moves to Bolster Playoff Push
If this trade offers us a lesson heading into this year’s trade deadline, it’s that you never know who is available; there weren’t any insiders talking about Hronek prior to the trade, so it came as a surprise when the trade was announced. It is certainly possible that Yzerman and the Red Wings are in on someone none of us have considered.
Tyler Bertuzzi to Boston
The 2023 trade deadline was a particularly significant one for the Red Wings. Not only did they send Hronek to Vancouver, but they also traded Tyler Bertuzzi to the Boston Bruins for a 2024 first-round pick and a fourth-round pick in 2025. In the matter of a week, the Red Wings traded their second-best defenseman and arguably their second-best forward.
At the time of the trade, Bertuzzi had just turned 28 years old and was coming off a 62-point season, which still stands as the best of his career. He had never played in a playoff game, but his style of play was often cited by insiders as a reason playoff teams would have interest in him.
The Bruins were the team that ultimately pulled the trigger, trading their first-round pick in the following year’s draft and a fourth-round pick as well.
The trade sent a shockwave through the Red Wings’ locker room. Dylan Larkin famously fought back tears while talking about the trade the day after signing an eight-year extension to stay in Detroit. A Bertuzzi trade certainly felt like a possibility at the time, but it was still a surprise to see the former second-round pick suit up for a new team.
That summer, Yzerman and the Red Wings were connected to Alex DeBrincat of the Ottawa Senators, a native of Michigan. A deal was eventually struck, with the Red Wings sending the first-round pick they acquired in the Bertuzzi trade (along with a few other pieces) to Ottawa in exchange for DeBrincat.
DeBrincat has since gone on to become a key part of Detroit’s offense, finding chemistry with Larkin and Lucas Raymond, as well as Patrick Kane once he arrived in Detroit.
Yzerman’s deadline moves usually resulted in draft selections and prospects, but this is one case where he turned a player into a pick and a pick into a player. This is arguably the biggest move Yzerman has ever made to improve the Red Wings’ current standing – at least for the time being.
Anthony Mantha to Washington
At one point in time, this was the biggest Red Wings trade in years. Anthony Mantha was Detroit’s top pick in the 2013 draft (20th overall) and had established chemistry with Larkin on Detroit’s top line prior to signing a four-year extension with the Red Wings in the fall of 2020. Within five months, he was wearing a new sweater.
Ahead of the 2021 trade deadline, Mantha was struggling to produce consistent offense for the Red Wings. He had just 21 points in 42 games heading into the deadline, but his name wasn’t out in the rumor mill – he had just signed a new contract to stay in Detroit after all. Instead, Yzerman dealt him to the Washington Capitals in exchange for wingers Jakub Vrána and Richark Pánik, a first round pick in 2021, and a second round pick in 2022.
Vrána and Pánik ultimately didn’t amount to much in Detroit, but the two players acquired with those picks are still in the organization. At the 2021 draft, the Red Wings traded the Capitals’ first-round pick (23rd overall), along with second and fifth-round picks to the Dallas Stars in exchange for the 15th pick of the draft. With that pick, the Red Wings drafted goaltender Sebastian Cossa, and he immediately became the franchise’s goaltender of the future. Despite additional investments in the goaltending position, he still holds that title.
With the 2022 second-round pick, the Red Wings selected Dmitri Buchelnikov at 52nd overall. He is one of the organization’s most skilled prospects, but he has yet to make his debut in North America.
This trade legitimately came out of nowhere. It put Red Wings fans on notice that nobody’s spot is secure when you’re building for the future. It set the stage for the Bertuzzi and Hronek trades a couple years later, and it confirmed that Yzerman meant it when he said that Detroit’s rebuild would require patience.
What’s Next?
Just as he shaped the Red Wings through his deals as a seller, Yzerman is poised to shape the Red Wings as a buyer at this year’s deadline. Detroit has an up and coming team that holds a bounty of future assets, some of which were acquired in the deals listed here. When you begin a rebuild, you hope to end up in this position someday.
The Red Wings have been connected to almost every marquee deadline target as they are one of only a handful of teams with the assets to make a big swing. There is an undeniable pressure to make a move and bolster this roster’s chances of making the playoffs. With less than 36 hours to go, we’ll have to wait and see how Yzerman responds to that pressure.