Red Wings spend draft capital to help themselves now, and later

Detroit News

Detroit — A hockey team is usually looking to the present and positioning itself for a bright future at the NHL Entry Draft.

The Red Wings are hoping this past weekend’s draft, through various trades and selections, make them better now and, yes, in the future.

Because they owned so much draft capital, in the form of 12 draft picks as of a couple of weeks ago, the Wings had options, and used them.

They used some of those picks as key ingredients in packages to acquire immediate NHL talent (a second-round pick for defenseman Nick Leddy, third-round pick for goaltender Alex Nedeljkovic).

The Wings should be the better for it in the short term.

Then, during the draft, they packaged a few of the other picks to move up and draft prospects they identified as possible NHL players in the future (goaltender Sebastian Cossa in Friday’s first round, defenseman Shai Buium in Saturday’s second round).

The Red Wings eventually had eight total draft picks. They felt excited about the players they drafted, felt they filled organizational holes at center and left-defense, and drafted a goaltending prospect.

And, with Leddy and Nedeljkovic, they got better heading into 2021-22.

But, make no mistake. Trading away those draft picks, even though the Wings had a bunch of them, ate at general manager Steve Yzerman.

“Honestly, I hate giving up draft picks,” Yzerman said Saturday on a media Zoom call after the draft ended. “I feel every draft pick, regardless of a first-round or a seventh-round (pick), is hope. It’s hope for Henrik Zetterberg or Pavel Datsyuk or Sergei Fedorov or Nicklas Lidstrom, or you name it — regardless of the pick.

“So, I hate giving up picks. I love accumulating them and keeping them and using them. Having the picks allowed us to do that. But, again, I don’t necessarily like to do it.

“But you have to be prepared to make these decisions and we felt good about it.”

Kris Draper, as the Wings’ director of amateur scouting, also would love to have as many picks at his disposal as possible. It gives Draper and his scouting staff that many more attempts to unearth gems that could someday blossom into NHL stars for the Wings.

But Draper was fully behind trading away some picks to make the Wings better today.

“When I’m walking into Little Caesars Arena, there’s a sense of pride to watching the Red Wings play,” Draper said. “Those moves, and moving out those picks to bring in players we brought in, it made sense to our organization.

“They made sense. We were able to bring in Nick Leddy, and he’s going to be a great mentor for all of your young defensemen. He can skate and the last couple of years going on long playoff runs with the New York Islanders, it just made sense to bring Nick Leddy in.

“And Nedeljkovic, it was a position we were looking for and we were able to get a 25-year-old goaltender that was pretty impressive this year and stepped up in big moments in the playoffs.”

But there’s also the future, and the Wings feel they accomplished putting together a draft class that potentially could help the organization several years from now.

It’s a group with character, with plenty of room to grow and willingness to put work in to get better.

“We feel we drafted in a lot of areas we needed to draft in,” Draper said. “You talk about the character, the talent of the prospects we brought in, and they all know the work starts now.”

The weekend’s work began Friday by drafting defenseman Simon Edvinsson and Cossa, two players many scouts had favorable reports on leading into the weekend.

“Simon Edvinsson was our highest-ranked prospect on our board and that’s how we came to the selection of announcing his name,” Draper said. “When you think about the prospects that we have coming on the back end and the size that we have, it’s obviously very exciting to add Simon to that group.

“And it just seemed everyone that we were talking to were big fans of Sebastian. We’re real excited to be able to add Sebastian to the organization. A 6-foot-6, athletic goaltender with very good technique and technical points in his game.

“It was something that we felt was very intriguing to the Detroit Red Wings.”

Then, to open Saturday’s portion of the draft, the Wings sent two of their picks — No. 38 and No. 128 overall — to Vegas, in order to move up to No. 36 and select Buium, a rangy, mobile 6-foot-3 left-shot defenseman that fills a hole in the organization that was lacking that sort of player.

Again, Yzerman wasn’t thrilled by trading away draft picks. But getting an opportunity to pluck a player the Wings felt strongly about, and using some of that draft capital the organization had accumulated, it felt like the right thing to do.

“We had (Buium) probably higher than most people, and we just felt like, let’s get him,” Yzerman said. “We’ve been in that spot before where we’re waiting, waiting, and then they (the player) go right before you.

“We thought the cost to move up to make sure we had him was reasonable.”

ted.kulfan@detroitnews.com

Twitter: @tkulfan

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