He does not do it often, yet when he does fans and media tend to stop and listen. Steve Yzerman general manager of the Detroit Red Wings seldom offers glimpses into how he runs his team. He prefers to just do it. This past week Yzerman sat down for a ZOOM call and actually laid out some of his vision for the future of the Red Wings as well as how he and his staff will approach the 2020 NHL draft.
This is one of the busiest times for NHL GM’s. The 2020 draft is next Tuesday with free agency to follow October 9. Through it all Steve Yzerman is not going to alter how he approaches building the Red Wings back into a playoff contender.
“Our plan right now is to draft and try accumulate, or add, additional picks along the way. Draft, be patient, and hopefully we draft well,” Yzerman said. The Detroit Red Wings GM is looking to build a solid nucleus around some of the young Red Wings talent already in Detroit.
The Red Wings in the middle of a rebuild, they are not targeting specific position groups in the draft. At this point, they simply want to add the best prospects available.
The Red Wings were the worst team in the NHL last season and the organizations reward is the fourth overall first round draft pick, due to a faulty NHL lottery system that needs overhauled.
Even picking fourth, there is a fairly deep pool of talented prospects available in top half of the first round, the Red Wings will likely get a player who eventually will help them at No. 4 overall. Be it a year or five years.
Cole Perfetti, Marco Rossi and Lucas Raymond, and defensemen Jamie Drysdale and Jake Sanderson all have been linked to the Detroit hockey team. This is how Yzerman will draft and how he runs his team during a rebuild. Collect as many draft picks as you can. Detroit has three second round draft picks this year.
Collect talent and hope you strike gold on some of them. Steve Yzerman has a history of striking gold with later draft picks.
