Detroit Red Wings GM Steve Yzerman has made it very clear that in order to build a winning franchise, the NHL Draft is crucial. Yzerman knows that obtaining more draft capital will increase his odds of landing players who will eventually develop into NHL talent and if it means making cap crunch trades, you can count him in if the price is right.
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In a recent piece published in The Athletic, Max Bultman suggests a trade proposal that would include a future 1st round pick from the Tampa Bay Lightning heading to the Red Wings.
From The Athletic:
Detroit gets Yanni Gourde and 2022 first-round pick, Tampa Bay gets future considerations.
I was wondering if anyone was going to propose something like this with the Lightning. There was a Tyler Johnson proposal in the inbox that involved the Red Wings sending picks to Tampa, and obviously there was the Sergachev offer sheet mentioned above, but otherwise, there were very few true cap-crunch proposals with Yzerman’s former team.
So, I’ll offer one up.
Gourde, as a refresher, has five years at $5.17 million AAV left on his contract with the Lightning, who need every cap dollar they can get right now. And to be honest, before Friday, I might have put this one in Tier 2, thinking the Lightning could find easier ways out of their cap problem. Frankly, that still might be the case.
But something struck me while reading Joe Smith’s excellent Lightning trade tiers story, which Red Wings fans should be sure to check out. In that story, Smith quoted former NHL GM Craig Button as saying of Gourde that “you’re not moving that money and that player without giving up a significant sweetener,” and suggested a future first-round pick as the kind of asset it might take to get it done.
If that’s the case, then Yzerman should certainly be finding out if his old pal Julien BriseBois is amenable to such a move. Yes, it is a steep contract for a soon-to-be 29-year-old who had just 30 points last season. But it’s fair to note that Gourde did that while playing just 14 minutes a game for the Lightning. And he was also a 20-plus goal scorer in each of the previous two seasons while still playing just 16 minutes per night.
So even if his contract is a bit steep, Gourde is still a productive player and could easily be the Red Wings’ second-line center for the next couple of seasons before dropping down the lineup, sliding to the wing, or both. If Detroit could get a legitimate on-ice upgrade while picking up a future first-round pick, that’s certainly an ideal way to try to benefit from this cap crunch.
It’s worth noting Gourde has a no-trade clause, and getting him to waive it for a last-place team might be a tough sell. But would the chance to play second-line minutes help that at all? Or the fact that his former GM is the man in charge in Detroit?
If not, then Gourde can be the one to say “no” all by himself.
But for hypothetical’s sake, let’s say he doesn’t. For this proposal, I used the Lightning’s 2022 first-rounder as the sweetener, because Tampa will already be without a first-round pick this year and might want to keep its 2021 selection for that reason. The year isn’t what’s important here.
What could be significant, from Detroit’s perspective, is that Tampa stands to be a legitimate Cup contender for the foreseeable future. That means this pick is likely to fall in the late 20s no matter when it conveys.
Nation, would you make this trade if it was on the table?
