Should Detroit Red Wings pay Seattle Kraken to rid roster of underachiever?

Detroit Free Press

What is it worth paying to jettison an underachieving player?

That’s the topic of this edition of Detroit Red Wings mailbag. The NHL’s 32nd club, the Seattle Kraken, will stock its roster next June from a list of players made available by 30 teams (Vegas is exempt).

The Kraken has to select one player from every club, and has quite the example to follow, as the Golden Knights used the 2017 expansion draft to build a team that went all the way to the Stanley Cup Final in its inaugural season. The Knights made the playoffs again in 2019 and 2020.

Teams can protect either seven forwards, three defensemen and one goaltender, or eight skaters (regardless of position) and one goaltender. I laid out a scenario of who the Wings are likely to protect July 26, noting that teams can make pre-arranged deals to decide who Seattle will draft.

A reader, C. Josefs, suggested Steve Yzerman should do so to get rid of either Justin Abdelkader or Frans Nielsen, writing “I would not be opposed to Yzerman shedding a bad contract if the “sweetener” was a third- or fourth-round draft choice or even a prospect. … Is Seattle in the same powerful position as Vegas was to demand high compensation for taking on bad contracts?”

[ Believe it or not, Frans Nielsen can still help the Wings. Here’s how ]

The expansion rules in place for 2017 and 2021 make it tough for teams to protect everyone desired. The parameters were designed to give a new franchise a chance to be competitive from the get-go, and rightfully so, considering Vegas paid $500 million to join and Seattle paid $650 million. (That’s a staggering 30% inflation in just a few years.)

It wasn’t so much that Vegas was powerful as that several GMs gambled on deals to protect assets. Minnesota for example, was so desperate to ensure the Knights did not select Matt Dumba or Marco Scandella that the Wild agreed to trade prospect Alex Tuch to Vegas in return for the Knights taking Erik Haula in the expansion draft. Tuch was a 20-goal scorer for Vegas in 2018-19. Winnipeg arranged for Vegas to take Chris Thorburn, and it cost the Jets a first-round pick in 2017.The Islanders, likewise, surrendered a first-round pick to Vegas to pre-arrange the expansion draft selection.

More hockey: Your guide to watching the Stanley Cup playoffs in August

Much as it might appeal to have Seattle take Abdelkader or Nielsen, it does not make sense to do so at the expense of a top prospect (Tuch was a first-round pick in 2014) or a first-round draft pick. Those are the pieces that are crucial to a rebuild. The Kraken has no reason to take on the contract of Abdelkader (who in 2021 will have two years left at a $4.25 million cap hit) or Nielsen (one year at $5.25 million) for a third- or fourth-round pick or a middling prospect — why would Seattle general manager Ron Francis do so?

The Seattle expansion draft is a year away, so things can change, but a pre-arranged deal doesn’t seem practical for the Wings.

The next question regards Mike Babcock, who coached the Wings from 2005-2015. Ed in New Brunswick wrote to ask, “Why not bring back Babs to be part of the organization (sic) with the rebuild? Has there been any attempts on this level since his ‘unfortunate’ departure from TO?”

Babcock resurfaced in the news this week after joining the University of Vermont hockey program as a volunteer advisor. Babcock had been laying low since he was fired by the Toronto Maple Leafs on Nov. 20, from what was his third head coaching job in the NHL. Before he joined the Wings, Babcock was in Anaheim, where he guided the Ducks to the 2003 Stanley Cup Final, starting with a first-round upset of the defending champion Wings. 

Yzerman knew Babcock was available, and he’s worked with him closely — as executive director of Team Canada, Yzerman chose Babcock to coach at both the 2010 and 2014 Winter Olympics. But from the day he was appointed GM of the Wings, April 19, 2019, Yzerman has been steadfast in backing Jeff Blashill, doing so before the 2019-20 season, at the 2020 trade deadline, and again after the season ended.

Furthermore, Babcock left the Wings because he foresaw the team’s struggles. After the Game 7 loss in Tampa Bay in 2015, Babcock wondered who would replace Henrik Zetterberg and Pavel Datsyuk as they aged into their mid-30s.

“We’ve got lots of good young players, no question about it, and ideally we’ve got some good ones coming,” Babcock said. “But who is going to replace Pav? … In the end, you’ve got to have big-time players up the middle and on the back to be successful. So those are questions in our organization that we work towards and we’ve been drafting good and developing good, but we’ve been winning too much. That’s the facts.”

The Wings did try to keep Babcock, offering him $3.25 million a year for four years. But the Maple Leafs offered twice the term and $50 million — and the lure of being the guy who’d guide the Leafs back to playoff glory. (They haven’t won the Stanley Cup since 1967.) Babcock failed to do so — the Leafs didn’t qualify in 2016, and were bounced in the first round in 2017, ’18 and ’19. 

Contact Helene St. James at hstjames@freepress.com. Follow her on Twitter @helenestjames. Read more on the Detroit Red Wings and sign up for our Red Wings newsletter. Her book, The Big 50: The Men and Moments that made the Detroit Red Wings will be published in October by Triumph Books. To preorder, go to Amazon.

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