In doing something he’s loathe to do, Steve Yzerman strengthened the Detroit Red Wings for the present and the future.
He came out of the 2021 NHL draft with eight prospects, four fewer than he could have had. It was Yzerman’s third draft since being named general manager of the Wings, and he used it to add two big left-shot defensemen, a giant of a goaltender, three centers who boast skill and leadership, a right-shot defenseman and a hardy winger.
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“We hope we made good choices,” Yzerman said Saturday. “We definitely wanted to address some needs, particularly on left ‘D’ in our prospect pool. We feel we have a very, very good goalie prospect within our system. We’re comfortable with the depth of prospects we have on left ‘D,’ and on the right side as well. We were able to add some forwards, centermen in particular. If you look at our prospects, we have a lot of what we consider skilled wingers. We wanted to add to that with some centermen.”
In early July, Yzerman had 12 picks, accumulated via deals over the past several trade deadlines as the Wings’ lack of success made them sellers. A second-round pick was used to acquire veteran defenseman Nick Leddy, a third-round pick was used to acquire promising young goaltender Alex Nedeljkovic. That was before the draft. During Friday’s first round, Yzerman used the Nos. 23, 48 and 138 picks to move up to No. 15 and draft goaltender Sebastian Cossa.
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On Saturday, early in Round 2, Yzerman used Nos. 38 and 128 to move up to No. 36 to take Shai Buium, a 6-3 left-shot defenseman.
“I hate giving up draft picks,” Yzerman said. “I feel every draft pick, regardless of a first-rounder or seventh-rounder, is hope. It’s hope for a Henrik Zetterberg or Pavel Datsyuk or Sergei Fedorov or Nicklas Lidstrom or you name it. So I hate giving up picks. I love accumulating them and keeping them and using them.
“We still ended up with eight selections, and we did a lot of things with the picks that we had, so it does give you options.”
Yzerman is balancing stoking the rebuild with improving the current team. He knows how hard it is to build a competitor — he waited 14 years as a player to lift the Stanley Cup, and that was eight years after a draft that yielded Lidstrom and Fedorov. He also knows how miserable it is to lose game after game, and doesn’t want his young core to be buried under such despair.
“I feel strongly that it’s important that we try to be competitive, so that cost us,” he said.
Yzerman’s first draft class, from 2019, is only just starting to yield its fruits, as first-round pick Moritz Seider is poised to join the lineup this fall. The pandemic cast a shadow over so much last season, it’s not fair to judge most players’ development, or lack thereof. The best course of action after a draft is patience, even for the top picks.
Yzerman used his first pick this year, at No. 6, on 6-4, left-shot defenseman Simon Edvinsson, who most likely will play again next season with Frölunda of the Swedish Hockey League. Frölunda has been bountiful for the Wings, yielding 2020 first-rounder Lucas Raymond and second-rounder Theodor Niederbach, 2019 sixth-rounder Elmer Soderblom, and this year, fifth-rounder Liam Dower Nilsson.
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Nilsson and Edvinsson are such good friends they spent Saturday together, and every time the Wings came up on the draft board, Edvinsson was rooting for Nilsson to be the pick. It finally happened, at No. 134. Nilsson captained Sweden’s U18 team, and his competitiveness matches his character.
“I see myself as a steal, because I know I have that in me,” Nilsson said. ”I know I am going to make the NHL in four or five years, or three years maybe.
“I think the most important skills to get ahead is motivation and being patient and being aware of what it takes to get there. And I think I have those things and know those things.”
Carter Mazur, who grew up in Jackson and played youth hockey with the son of Wings exec Kris Draper, was the first forward the Wings took at No. 70. Red Savage was drafted at No. 114, and defenseman Oscar Plandowski, the son of a scout who worked for Yzerman when he was GM in Tampa Bay, was drafted at No. 155. Pasquale Zito from the Windsor Spitfires was the last pick the Wings made, at No. 166.
It’ll take years to know how they pan out. But the Wings left the draft feeling good about how they distributed a plethora of picks to improve the current team and the future one.
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 Detroit Red Wings is available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Triumph Books. Personalized copies available via her e-mail.