Giving up a draft pick that's extremely unlikely to turn into anything and an overpaid third pair defenseman is a disaster for Yzerman?
It seems people dont' understand what part of it is a disaster. It has nothing to do with what was given away, and everything to do with how it was done.
A 4th-7th round pick is worth almost nothing. If Yzerman called up San Jose and traded all of Detroit's 4th-7th round picks from 2024-2030 to them for free, just because, would you say it's inconsequential? It would have almost no impact on the franchise. But it wuold speak to terrible decision making by the GM. And that's what matters.
If, and I keep saying IF because it is still all rumors at this point:
1) Teams were willing to pay something (anything, 4th/5th pick, whatever) for Walman
2) Teams didn't even know Walman was available
3) Yzerman didn't even try to negotiate with San Jose, and simply offered up a 2nd instead of putting him on waivers or asking for something
Then Yzerman objectively made a terrible, indefensible trade and demonstrated poor decision making and piss poor asset management. The assets in question are not the point. Not sure how people can't see this.
Again, it may be that these podcast guys are wrong and there's more to this that we don't know about that will unfold. I'm only going off what is being said, and hence all my posts have the "if this is true" qualifier.