Red Wings’ 8 Worst Draft Picks of the Yzerman Era

With the announcement of Steve Yzerman stepping down as General Manager of the Detroit Red Wings last week, the “Yzerplan” Era of Red Wings hockey has come to a close. This era will be remembered as a failure for its inability to ice a playoff team, its wild free agent signings, and its mixed draft history.

After eight drafts with Yzerman at the helm, the Red Wings are certainly closer to being a consistent playoff team than they were, but the results didn’t arrive soon enough. Last week we looked at the eight best picks of the Yzerman era, so let’s get cynical up in here and go in the opposite direction.

Let’s take a look at the most disappointing and lacklustre selections made by the Red Wings under Yzerman’s guidance.

Antti Tuomisto: 35th Overall, 2019 Draft

Antti Tuomisto is a big right shot defender who was drafted out of Finland’s top junior league. For years he bounced between various levels in Finland as well as the NCAA before finally spending the past three seasons with the Grand Rapids Griffins in the AHL.

Tuomisto has had back-to-back strong seasons in the AHL, but he really hasn’t been a legitimate callup option for Detroit. As a 25 year old player it’s unlikely that he becomes more than an occasional fill-in guy when injuries stack up on the blue line. 

He signed with the Vegas Golden Knights’ organization this offseason and is no longer a part of the franchise that drafted him. It doesn’t help that the next defenseman taken in the 2019 Draft was Jackson LaCombe, who looks like a potential number one defender for the Anaheim Ducks long-term.

Theodor Niederbach: 51st Overall, 2020 Draft

Theodor Niederbach has developed into a really nice SHL player after coming up through the MoDo system in Örnsköldsvik, Sweden. As a 5-foot-11 forward without elite offense, it quickly became clear after his draft that he wasn’t likely going to be an important player in the Red Wings’ organization. 

On the value end of this draft pick, the next 20 picks or so of the 2020 Draft include many full time quality NHLers like Emil Andrae, Mason Lohrei, Will Cuylle, and even Alexander Nikishin. The 2020 Draft was a challenging process, but using a mid-second round pick on a player who you never even sign or bring over to North America is certainly a disappointment.

Sebastian Cossa: 15th Overall, 2021 Draft

This one is absolutely debatable and I’m still a believer that Cossa has a future in the NHL, but it’s hard to keep going to bat for him and the Red Wings’ decision to draft him when we all watched Jesper Wallstedt’s performance in the Stanley Cup Playoffs last April. 

Cossa’s development path has been a bit unorthodox, especially his stint in the ECHL with the Toledo Walleye. However, I do think his size and fiery competitiveness will lead him to the NHL eventually. The Red Wings have invested a lot of resources into Cossa, so when he was surpassed on the Griffins’ depth chart by the surprising season of Michael Postava, it felt like the writing was on the wall.

In trading Cossa to the Utah Mammoth for the 23rd pick of the 2026 Draft, Detroit recouped a decent bit of value, but they swung big and certainly missed back in 2021. There aren’t many players from the mid-to-late first round in 2021 who have emerged as great NHL players, but the conversation between the two goalies was a huge debate, and one that Detroit got wrong.

Dmitri Buchelnikov: 52nd Overall, 2022 Draft

Dmitri Buchelnikov was a near unknown name as a re-entry player in the 2022 Draft, and one that surprised most analysts in the second round. Buchelnikov is a small winger with a ton of skill and a rocket of a slap shot whose lack of footspeed or physical prowess has limited his game even in the KHL where that style of play tends to work a bit better.

Buchelnikov has worked his way up to being a full time KHLer in recent years, and has signed extension after extension, never making it to Grand Rapids where I’m sure the organization would have loved to get a closer look at him. His signing rights were sent to the St. Louis Blues as a part of the Justin Faulk trade, but he is set to return to his KHL club next fall yet again.

Taking Buchelnikov wasn’t an unforgivable swing in the late second round, in fact it’s the kind of move that I would often encourage teams to make outside of the first round. However, if the team was willing to swing on a highly skilled, undersized player, Detroit absolutely should have selected Lane Hutson. They also passed on guys like Ryan Greene and Elias Salomonsson who look like long-term middle of the lineup pieces who went within the next 5 picks. 

Brady Cleveland: 47th Overall, 2023 Draft

Since Detroit drafted Brady Cleveland in the 2023 Draft, he has played 93 NCAA games across three seasons. Each of those seasons was with a different school and he has scored a grand total of five total points in three seasons. 

Cleveland is a big defender whose calling card is his physicality. It was clear even at the time that this was a prospect with an incredibly low floor and ceiling as an NHL prospect. Leading up to the draft, he had played 45 games with the United States National Team Development Program over two years, once again scoring a whopping total of five points.

This was a tough pick to justify at the time, as it was already clear that Cleveland was quite unlikely to be able to skate in the NHL, and it didn’t look like he could move the puck anywhere close to the NHL level. There were many players left on the board back in 2023 who presented bigger upside swings (Lukas Dragicevic, Felix Unger-Sorum), and also some who were safer bets to contribute in the NHL (Oskar Fisker Molgaard, Beau Akey). 

Shai Buium: 36th Overall, 2021 Draft

Shai Buium had a very successful collegiate career with the University of Denver, and has looked alright in the AHL with the Griffins for the past two seasons. I don’t think expectations for him are higher than becoming a seventh or eighth guy on Detroit’s depth chart, but that’s not terrible value for a second round pick. 

The value lost in the selection is why this makes the list, with the second round of the 2021 Draft already producing tons of high-end NHL talent. Josh Doan was taken with the very next pick, Logan Stankoven was taken 11 picks later than Buium, and both Matthew Knies and J.J. Moser were taken later in that same round. Obviously other teams missed out on those players as well, but it stings to see so many players who fit Detroit’s style perfectly becoming stars for other Atlantic Division teams.

Andrew Gibson: 42nd Overall, 2023 Draft

Another one of Detroit’s picks in the early second round in the 2023 Draft, Andrew Gibson profiles similarly to Cleveland, but with more offensive creativity and skill. However, Gibson hasn’t exactly blown anyone away on the score sheet. In his age 19/20 season in the OHL, he scored just 24 points in 54 games split between the Soo Greyhounds and the Oshawa Generals.

Now, the Red Wings did capitalize on his inflated value after a high scoring season immediately following his draft, trading him to the Nashville Predators for prospect Jesse Kiiskinen and a second round pick. That was some savvy asset management as Gibson’s value soon deflated considerably. However, the Red Wings immediately shattered any illusions of cleverness when they packaged that second rounder with Jake Walman in a cap-dump trade to the Edmonton Oilers in exchange for Future Considerations. 

Robert Mastrosimone: 54th Overall, 2019 Draft

Robert Mastrosimone was taken late in the second round of the 2019 Draft, and has yet to earn even a two-way NHL contract. Mastrosimone has moved on to multiple AHL organizations over the past few seasons, even spending a bit of this past season in the ECHL. 

The 2019 Draft was obviously still a success for the franchise with the team’s most important player, Moritz Seider, being selected sixth overall, as well as drafting Albert Johansson and Elmer Söderblom. However, they missed mightily with each of their second round picks on Mastrosimone and Tuomisto. This draft could have kicked off the rebuild triumphantly, but instead it produced one superstar and a third pairing defender.