Detroit Red Wings GM Steve Yzerman has been busy in free agency, bringing aboard the likes of forwards Bobby Ryan and Vladislav Namestnikov, defenseman Troy Stecher and Jon Merrill, and goaltender Thomas Greiss.
He also took care of a few internal matters, re-signing both restricted free agent forwards Tyler Bertuzzi and Anthony Mantha.
However, he may have more moves up his sleeves.
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The team currently has nearly $10 million in cap space remaining for Yzerman to work with, and he hasn’t closed the door on potentially bringing aboard more talent before next season begins.
“There are still a lot of players on the market,” he said. “I would consider it as we get closer to knowing when we’re going to start. As far as the trade market, I’m not really active in that right now. Certainly, we’d be open to listening. But things are quiet right now.”
The array of signings that he’s already made almost assuredly mean that the Red Wings won’t finish anywhere near with as few points as they did last season, during which they earned the unfortunate distinction of being the 31st ranked team in the NHL by a wide margin.
However, he’s not going to lay out an exact timetable of when fans can expect to see the team return to the former glory they enjoyed when No. 19 was on the ice.
“I’m not going to set a timeline or a date or a number of years,” he said. “We’re just going to continue to do what we are doing and we’ll look for ways to improve the team. The plan isn’t just to not try to improve and get better from year to year. We’re going to try to get better from year to year, but the reality is you’re limited to what you can do, or you’re restricted by the time it takes for each young prospect to develop. It’s just not as simple as going out and making a bunch of trades and getting really good players and signing a bunch of free agents.”
– – Quotes via Helene St. James of The Detroit Free Press Link – –
