Detroit active in conversations despite the lack of trades
One of the top teams in the Atlantic Division has yet to make any big moves leading up to the NHL Trade Deadline, but it’s not for a lack of trying.
The Detroit Red Wings are on a path to finally end their 10-year-long playoff drought and have a chance to make a run toward first place in the division. However, if the team wants not only to make it to the postseason but also to have an honest run late into the spring, they need a couple more pieces.
Yet, general manager Steve Yzerman has yet to pull the trigger on a trade. The team was interested in defenseman Tyler Myers, but missed out. Detroit is still connected to Robert Thomas, but no deal has been made yet.
On Thursday’s episode of Daily Faceoff LIVE, David Pagnotta joined Tyler Yaremchuk and Carter Hutton to explain how involved the Wings are in trade talks in the lead-up to Friday’s deadline.
David Pagnotta: They’ve been active, and they’ve been in a lot of these discussions that have been going on so far. I think there’s still some tire-kicking with regards to Thomas. Ristolainen’s a defenseman they’ve had interest in. They lost out on Tyler Myers. They’ve explored additional options to see where that where that can go. I mentioned [Oliver Ekman-Larsson] being another target, too.
They’re fishing. For them and it’s clear that they want to add on the blue line, somebody who can play the right side based on all the guys they missed out on before. It’s it’s pretty clear um that they want to add up front. Now, they’ve got their own plan and it’s hard to decipher exactly what that is in terms of when they’re are willing to kind of…take the next steps in that plan. … I think Yzerman wants to reward his team by bringing on somebody in an impactful way. It’s super hard to try to narrow things down there. I think Detroit wants to do something pretty impactful, whether it’s on the blue line or up front. Again…I don’t know the odds on that one, and it could be both. But they’re still very active.
You can watch the full segment and entire episode here…