Confirmed with Link: Walman and a 2nd Round Pick traded to SJ

[SirloinUB]

Look at their history vs. Walman's history...besides Holl I get why one would believe the others were better.

Take Gustafsson he was coming of two seasons of 31 and 38 points being a plus, besides 2021-22 season with Chicago he hasn't really had a bad season. I'm not saying he is great and a top d-man, but its within reason to acquire him as he had held his own to a good degree defensively as well. Idk why he gets so much shit on, easy frustration target I guess.

Never like the Holl signing.

Chiarot had two bad years prior to coming to Detroit. It was a gamble believing he could turn it around in a new environment. I wouldn't have taken it on him, but we needed a d-man or more at the time.

IDK, The Gus signing strikes me as a massive misunderstanding of what this roster needed. Paying a 2nd to Jettison a puck moving Dman, to turn around and sign a PP specialist/PMD is not what this roster needed. Instead Stevey should have went after a meaningful PKing Dman.

Obviously hindsight is 20-20 but the FOs is paid to have foresight, not hindsight.

 

[Gniwder]

IDK, The Gus signing strikes me as a massive misunderstanding of what this roster needed. Paying a 2nd to Jettison a puck moving Dman, to turn around and sign a PP specialist/PMD is not what this roster needed. Instead Stevey should have went after a meaningful PKing Dman.

Obviously hindsight is 20-20 but the FOs is paid to have foresight, not hindsight.

Very few people thought Gus would be this bad. At worst, most thought he'd be a serviceable 3rd pair D for $2M x 2 years. For that amount, it wasn't even worth discussing. His thread only went 1.5 pages before the season started, compared to Cleveland's 200 page thread, and the kid may never even sign a contract, lol.

Confirmed with Link: - Erik Gustafsson (2 yrs x $2m)

forums.hfboards.com

 

[Tetsuo]

I think part of that was us not spending on a bigger upgrade on the blueline this last summer. Roy looked interesting this summer...does he still look interesting 3 years from now or is he a guy we are regretting just when we have a lot of those kids (hopefully) solidifying themselves into a real core?

Maybe we'll go after a UFA like Petersson, Gavrikov, or Chychrun, but I'd bet we look at another short term trade and moving ASP into the lineup.

We need a LD long term, which might even come from within, who knows. I think between Ed, Mo and ASP, we're going to be very stable for the next decade or more on D. In that sense I can see why Yzerman has settled for signing plugs and not being aggressive with trading for better... but that still won't ever make the Walman deal okay in my mind.

Is that really the case? It gets mentioned regularly, but is it true? I don't know.,.

Even with Ed and Kasper graduating, we still have: ASP (Elite to super star potential), Buchelnikov (Elite to superstar potential), Cossa (Elite to super star potential), Danielson (top 6 potential), Ammo (top 6 potential), Finnie (top 6 potential), MBN (top 6 potential) Augustine (starter potential), Mazur (high end roleplayer potential) all trending in good directions. That's in addition to several more guys with real shots to play. We haven't been in this long of a rebuild for nothing.

Deepest pool is all projection.

There's wishful thinking and then there is having eyes to watch games and a mind to comprehend stats. We're underrated because we haven't had any media darlings available to us to take, but ASP and Buch alone have the kind of skill to alter franchises and Cossa has a lot of unicorn traits. Even just one or two more of the guys I mentioned above will give us an excellent, deep team to build around, and that's being conservative.

 

[SirloinUB]

Very few people thought Gus would be this bad. At worst, most thought he'd be a serviceable 3rd pair D for $2M x 2 years. For that amount, it wasn't even worth discussing. His thread only went 1.5 pages before the season started, compared to Cleveland's 200 page thread, and the kid may never even sign a contract, lol.

Confirmed with Link: - Erik Gustafsson (2 yrs x $2m)

forums.hfboards.com

I definitely remember there being a significant sentiment of "Ghost but cheaper."

People might fret about trading a 2nd for walman, which fair enough, but I'd have been okay with that if it fit into a bigger plan that worked out. I'm a big believer that you don't have to "win" every trade if you are accomplishing a specific goal ie. ship out walman and an asset to create a roster spot.

It kind of feels like their bigger plan was to "moneyball" the defense and spend upfront. Trade Walman and backfill with Ed. Let Gostisbehere walk and sign Gus for cheaper.

Outside of Ed, id say the plan did not work as intended.

 

[14ari13]

Gostibehere and Walman are top 12 in points in the league. Walman is even plus 7.
Unbelievable.

 

[OldnotDeadWings]

The title of the thread is correct, but some seem to misunderstand what it cost the Wings to move Walman. It didn't cost them a second-round pick, it cost them a prospect. Gibson was the asset used to acquire the second-round pick from Nashville that went to SJ just a few hours later, and in the process the Wings acquired a new prospect, Kiiskinen. The cost for Detroit to move Walman is the perceived difference in NHL potential between defensive RD Gibson (42nd OA in 2023) and two-way winger Kiiskinen (68th OA the same Draft).

The Wings were not so desperate to acquire the second-round pick that they gave up a top 10 prospect, nor did they sell low on Gibson. The value of the trade (according to Puckpedia), based on where all the picks fell, is in Detroit's favor. Kiiskinen is leading Liiga U20 players in PPG and considered a lock for Finland's WJC team. Wings have until 2027 to sign him.

 

[Lampedampe]

The title of the thread is correct, but some seem to misunderstand what it cost the Wings to move Walman. It didn't cost them a second-round pick, it cost them a prospect. Gibson was the asset used to acquire the second-round pick from Nashville that went to SJ just a few hours later, and in the process the Wings acquired a new prospect, Kiiskinen. The cost for Detroit to move Walman is the perceived difference in NHL potential between defensive RD Gibson (42nd OA in 2023) and two-way winger Kiiskinen (68th OA the same Draft).

The Wings were not so desperate to acquire the second-round pick that they gave up a top 10 prospect, nor did they sell low on Gibson. The value of the trade (according to Puckpedia), based on where all the picks fell, is in Detroit's favor. Kiiskinen is leading Liiga U20 players in PPG and considered a lock for Finland's WJC team. Wings have until 2027 to sign him.

I've seen this reasoning a few times now from different posters.

It doesn't make much sense, the important thing to understand is that the value of the 2nd rounder in the trade-market has nothing to do with how it was acquired.

If Yzerman got a 1st rounder for Gibson, would it then be totally fine to trading that 1st rounder to dump Walmans contract? With your reason, yes, that would make total sense because the value of the 1st is only based on: "perceived difference in NHL potential between defensive RD Gibson (42nd OA in 2023) and two-way winger Kiiskinen (68th OA the same Draft).".

For me this trade shows that Yzerman can sometimes make awesome trades, see the Kiiskinen trade. But sometimes he makes mistakes, this time it was quite a big mistake. I've bought into the theory that Yzerman planned on acquiring Trouba but it fell through, as a result we have this dogshit defense that we're seeing today.

 

[OldnotDeadWings]

I've seen this reasoning a few times now from different posters.

It doesn't make much sense, the important thing to understand is that the value of the 2nd rounder in the trade-market has nothing to do with how it was acquired.

If Yzerman got a 1st rounder for Gibson, would it then be totally fine to trading that 1st rounder to dump Walmans contract? With your reason, yes, that would make total sense because the value of the 1st is only based on: "perceived difference in NHL potential between defensive RD Gibson (42nd OA in 2023) and two-way winger Kiiskinen (68th OA the same Draft).".

For me this trade shows that Yzerman can sometimes make awesome trades, see the Kiiskinen trade. But sometimes he makes mistakes, this time it was quite a big mistake. I've bought into the theory that Yzerman planned on acquiring Trouba but it fell through, as a result we have this dogshit defense that we're seeing today.

Understanding how and why the pick was acquired explains the difference. Nothing about the reasoning suggests a first-round pick used the same way would have been "totally fine", because the purpose of the trade was to acquire only a second-round pick that the Wings had no intention of using themselves. It would have made no sense to transfer a first-rounder to SJ because that is an obvious over-payment. Other teams moving unwanted players (Ottawa, St. Louis) with similar Cap hits also paid a second-round pick, so the Wings, if they still wanted to have a Draft pick in the second round, needed to find another. Which they did, through a rare swap of young prospects that both teams probably had no intention of trading to that point.

The "original sin" if you want to call it that, for those who didn't and still don't like the trade, is the Wings deciding to get rid of Walman. Without a full explanation of the locker room issues, which we'll probably never get, it seems like a rash and counter-productive decision. My reasoning doesn't take into account or try to defend why that decision was made, only that once it was made they did a good job IMO in minimizing the cost required. They started that day of tthe trades with Walman, their own second-round pick (used to pick Plante) and Gibson. They ended the day with their own second-round pick and Kiiskinen.

Edit: Should have included this in the original reply, but suggesting a first-round pick going to SJ along with Walman would be totally fine according to my reasoning, you're absolutely right. The other elements involved in that hypothetical transaction would be completely different also from what really happened, and might also have ended up being totally fine according to the same reasoning. Adding an imaginary first-round pick to the equation requires adding the imaginary picks (or prospects/players) necessary to make it as equitable as what happened in real life.

 

[SirloinUB]

I've seen this reasoning a few times now from different posters.

It doesn't make much sense, the important thing to understand is that the value of the 2nd rounder in the trade-market has nothing to do with how it was acquired.

If Yzerman got a 1st rounder for Gibson, would it then be totally fine to trading that 1st rounder to dump Walmans contract? With your reason, yes, that would make total sense because the value of the 1st is only based on: "perceived difference in NHL potential between defensive RD Gibson (42nd OA in 2023) and two-way winger Kiiskinen (68th OA the same Draft).".

For me this trade shows that Yzerman can sometimes make awesome trades, see the Kiiskinen trade. But sometimes he makes mistakes, this time it was quite a big mistake. I've bought into the theory that Yzerman planned on acquiring Trouba but it fell through, as a result we have this dogshit defense that we're seeing today.

Every single GM is going to make many mistakes along the way. Its the nature of the business. What you are looking for a is a GM that makes more good moves than bad moves. IMO Yzerman has achieved that.

 

[SirKillalot]

The title of the thread is correct, but some seem to misunderstand what it cost the Wings to move Walman. It didn't cost them a second-round pick, it cost them a prospect. Gibson was the asset used to acquire the second-round pick from Nashville that went to SJ just a few hours later, and in the process the Wings acquired a new prospect, Kiiskinen.

No. What happened is Nashville asked of the willingness to move Gibson and what it would take.
Yzerman has a plan to move a player / his cap hit out.

Yzerman tell Trotz...We like Gibson, if but if you send us Kiiskinen and a sweetener we'd consider it.
With his mindset that currently we have a lot of d-men prospects and could use a forward. And if its a good sweetener he'd use it to send a d-man out in a hurry if the opportunity is there.

Trotz offer a 2nd with Kiiskinen for Gibson. Yzerman accepts.

Yzerman contacts San Jose and idk if any other teams, but nevertheless comes to a fairly quick agreement with Grier who said something similar to Yzerman as Yzerman did to Trotz, toss in a sweetener and we'll do it. Yzerman add the 2nd or through short negotiation they agree on the 2nd for them to take on Walman. Maybe Yzerman tried to push someone else we don't know, but most likely not.

His mistake was not to ask a lot more teams and to not use more time. That's it. But he wanted someone and wanted to make sure he had the cap space for it. Maybe they had contract offers in on others we don't know about.

Nevertheless, in Yzerman's opinion he gets a good forward prospect for a defenseman prospect, gets something for it and use the mindset of I didn't really have it from before and overall his "cost" of it is basically trade prospects 1 for 1 and get a d-man out in the process, he was willing to take the "sunk cost" for a pick they initially didn't have anyway and saw it as not a real loss for them.

Why we need 52 pages to discuss this is mind boggling to me.

If Yzerman got a 1st rounder for Gibson, would it then be totally fine to trading that 1st rounder to dump Walmans contract?

No, obviously not.

Understanding how and why the pick was acquired explains the difference. Nothing about the reasoning suggests a first-round pick used the same way would have been "totally fine", because the purpose of the trade was to acquire only a second-round pick that the Wings had no intention of using themselves.

The last part being true, get and asset the team didn't have with a perceived lateral move and ship it with a d-man. No "real cost" in practicality and he was willing to gamble the 75% chance or whatever that the 2nd pick doesn't turn into a player to have the cap space there and then.

 

[OldnotDeadWings]

No. What happened is Nashville asked of the willingness to move Gibson and what it would take.
Yzerman has a plan to move a player / his cap hit out.

Yzerman tell Trotz...We like Gibson, if but if you send us Kiiskinen and a sweetener we'd consider it.
With his mindset that currently we have a lot of d-men prospects and could use a forward. And if its a good sweetener he'd use it to send a d-man out in a hurry if the opportunity is there.

Trotz offer a 2nd with Kiiskinen for Gibson. Yzerman accepts.

Yzerman contacts San Jose and idk if any other teams, but nevertheless comes to a fairly quick agreement with Grier who said something similar to Yzerman as Yzerman did to Trotz, toss in a sweetener and we'll do it. Yzerman add the 2nd or through short negotiation they agree on the 2nd for them to take on Walman. Maybe Yzerman tried to push someone else we don't know, but most likely not.

His mistake was not to ask a lot more teams and to not use more time. That's it. But he wanted someone and wanted to make sure he had the cap space for it. Maybe they had contract offers in on others we don't know about.

Nevertheless, in Yzerman's opinion he gets a good forward prospect for a defenseman prospect, gets something for it and use the mindset of I didn't really have it from before and overall his "cost" of it is basically trade prospects 1 for 1 and get a d-man out in the process, he was willing to take the "sunk cost" for a pick they initially didn't have anyway and saw it as not a real loss for them.

Why we need 52 pages to discuss this is mind boggling to me.


No, obviously not.

The last part being true, get and asset the team didn't have with a perceived lateral move and ship it with a d-man. No "real cost" in practicality and he was willing to gamble the 75% chance or whatever that the 2nd pick doesn't turn into a player to have the cap space there and then.

Yours is a different take and a bit speculative of course but that's been the nature of the entire Walman saga due to the surprise of it and things that will likely never be known. 52 pages is mind-boggling, but I think understanding it has naturally taken a while to evolve and will continue.

IMO the desire to move Walman came first and was the catalyst for any trade talks to acquire another second-round pick. Trades involving the swap of such young prospects who both teams like rarely happen. Sometimes a prospect will be traded for a Draft pick, or there is a problem that requires moving a prospect (like with Cutter Gauthier) but otherwise prospects making progress are not often traded for each other within a year of being drafted. The Wings signed Gibson in late April so there couldn't have been much thought about trading him, there was still more than a year left before he needed to be signed.

As for Walman, other teams had about 10 weeks, from the end of the regular season to late June, to push a button on their cellphone and ask SY if Walman's reduced usage late in the season and maybe rumors of some issue meant that he was available, and if so what would it take to acquire him. Once the decision was made that Walman needed to go, he could have been acquired by any team for nothing more than FC. I doubt SY made no effort to get a better deal than the one he ended up taking.

 

[14ari13]

The fact is that Hronek, Walman and Gostibehere have put great numbers after leaving the wings.

 

[SirloinUB]

The fact is that Hronek, Walman and Gostibehere have put great numbers after leaving the wings.

Hronek's per game production has declined since leaving detroit

 

[Lampedampe]

Understanding how and why the pick was acquired explains the difference. Nothing about the reasoning suggests a first-round pick used the same way would have been "totally fine", because the purpose of the trade was to acquire only a second-round pick that the Wings had no intention of using themselves. It would have made no sense to transfer a first-rounder to SJ because that is an obvious over-payment. Other teams moving unwanted players (Ottawa, St. Louis) with similar Cap hits also paid a second-round pick, so the Wings, if they still wanted to have a Draft pick in the second round, needed to find another. Which they did, through a rare swap of young prospects that both teams probably had no intention of trading to that point.

The "original sin" if you want to call it that, for those who didn't and still don't like the trade, is the Wings deciding to get rid of Walman. Without a full explanation of the locker room issues, which we'll probably never get, it seems like a rash and counter-productive decision. My reasoning doesn't take into account or try to defend why that decision was made, only that once it was made they did a good job IMO in minimizing the cost required. They started that day of tthe trades with Walman, their own second-round pick (used to pick Plante) and Gibson. They ended the day with their own second-round pick and Kiiskinen.

Edit: Should have included this in the original reply, but suggesting a first-round pick going to SJ along with Walman would be totally fine according to my reasoning, you're absolutely right. The other elements involved in that hypothetical transaction would be completely different also from what really happened, and might also have ended up being totally fine according to the same reasoning. Adding an imaginary first-round pick to the equation requires adding the imaginary picks (or prospects/players) necessary to make it as equitable as what happened in real life.

That's true, but at the same time if someone said that we could get a 2nd rounder for Gibson. Who i thought had a bad season, + a prospect, I'd be saying that's just imaginary.

All I'm trying to say is, the value for the GM receiving the draft pick stays the same, no matter how the previous GM acquired it.

 

[OldnotDeadWings]

That's true, but at the same time if someone said that we could get a 2nd rounder for Gibson. Who i thought had a bad season, + a prospect, I'd be saying that's just imaginary.

All I'm trying to say is, the value for the GM receiving the draft pick stays the same, no matter how the previous GM acquired it.

I'd agree with that too. In this case, the pick and prospects exchanged (based on where they had been drafted) was a fair exchange according to Puckpedia, slightly favoring Detroit even with the high value accorded to where Gibson was picked, which a lot of Wings' fans thought was too high anyway.

 

[AlwaysSunnyInDetroit]

If Yzerman got a 1st rounder for Gibson, would it then be totally fine to trading that 1st rounder to dump Walmans contract? With your reason, yes, that would make total sense because the value of the 1st is only based on: "perceived difference in NHL potential between defensive RD Gibson (42nd OA in 2023) and two-way winger Kiiskinen (68th OA the same Draft).".

yzerman could have acquired 4 firsts and kiiskinen for gibson and minutes later given walman away with a 7th, and some people would still be complaining about the 7th several years after the fact

anyone still engaging with the usual haters in this thread are just wasting their time

 

[14ari13]

Hronek's per game production has declined since leaving detroit

I didn't check his numbers this season, I believe he (and Hughes) has been injured.
However he had great numbers last season and was a top 10 dman in the league.
Anyhow all 3 put very good and even great numbers.

What does it mean?

 

[14ari13]

Btw, we were fighting the caps for the last playoff spot. This season they are in the 1st place while we next last and 14 points difference.

 

[19 for president]

I didn't check his numbers this season, I believe he (and Hughes) has been injured.
However he had great numbers last season and was a top 10 dman in the league.
Anyhow all 3 put very good and even great numbers.

What does it mean?

It means that up until Ed's emergence this year we had 1 dman that could anchor a line and support an offensive minded dman. Then on top of that last year Seider's usage and deployment shot up to be some of the hardest minutes in the NHL last year, and 90% of more offensive dman cannot play that hard of defensive minutes.

Hronek and Seider won't going to play together because they are both RD. Hronek worked with Maata until he went down, but Maata was never the same after. Hronek/Hughes works because QH is a LD and also they play more offensive zone deployment.

Ghost is a bit streaky so I can see his numbers slowing as the season goes on but looked his best when paired with Seider. Sadly he wasn't good enough defensively to take the deployment that Seider got (hardest in NHL), and when dropped down to a lower pair had no dman that could support him.

Walman did pretty well with Seider two seasons ago but when they upped Seiders defensive deployment/ hard minutes, Walman couldn't handle that level of a defensive assignment.

Offensive specialist need a better dman to be paired with and also need to get primarily offensive assignments. Because we only had Seider to be that anchor guy and he gets some of the hardest minutes in the league, we are not a team set up super well for an offensive specialist.

I could see Ed/ASP being a banger pair if a few years because I think Ed will be able to help cover with ASP's deficiencies. If they are the 2nd pair with Seider/ Other taking the defensive minutes then you are setting up a guy like ASP to succeed.

 

[Big Poppa Puck]

yzerman could have acquired 4 firsts and kiiskinen for gibson and minutes later given walman away with a 7th, and some people would still be complaining about the 7th several years after the fact

anyone still engaging with the usual haters in this thread are just wasting their time

That's true, but he could have acquired 4 first and Kiiskinen for Gibson and gave Walman away with a 2nd and it's still a bad trade.

Let's say the organization did have issues with him and needed the cap space.

There's no way he had such little value that a 2nd needed to be attached. None. You see if you can get anything of value for him, if you can't you try waiving him, if he clears waivers then you try to attach a pick, starting with a 7th and work your way down. I'm sure some team would have stopped you before you got to a 2nd.

Even if Yzerman needed the cap space immediately for something that *might* happen (and didn't by the way) he just handedly it terribly and it's poor asset management. We sign Stamkos or the Trouba or some other trade goes down, it makes more sense. But as is we just gave away a decent player and decent draft pick for literally nothing.

Now with that being said is Jake Walman the difference between making a deep playoff run or not? Probably not. Was that 2nd likely to turn into anything we'll regret? More than likely no (but could have been used in other trades). Is he better than at least 3 or 4 of our current defenseman? Most certainly.

It's always been more about the poor asset management than it is Jake Walman specifically.

 

[ricky0034]

yzerman could have acquired 4 firsts and kiiskinen for gibson and minutes later given walman away with a 7th, and some people would still be complaining about the 7th several years after the fact

anyone still engaging with the usual haters in this thread are just wasting their time

and he could trade Kane for a 1st tomorrow and then trade away Seider with a 2nd as a sweetener like the Walman deal in 5 years and you'd have people here saying it's a good deal because when you combine the two Yzerman came out ahead in draft picks

 

[Dotter]

This is all allegedly. There has been no proof, just rumors by members of this board. I would love to see any proof whatsoever that he was a bugaboo in the locker room. Seriously, I'd love to see it so we can either squash these rumors or finally have the clarity we need that this trade was more than just a cap dump.

He was great his first season and pretty good the first half of last season, then his play slipped dramatically and he was injured.

If you find someone in DRWs front office with loose lips willing to spill the beans, come back and let us all know. In the meantime all we can do is use deductive reasoning. Which has been spelled out ad nauseam.

 

[Retire91]

I am not sure what Walman was doing or did and we may never know but its clear this was not a hockey transaction, this was personal. Taking a loss on the trade sends a message. You weren't just traded, you were gotten rid of. Obviously not what the fans want to see on paper but seriously people this trade will not put a dent in the future. If this were a trend then yeah, but its not so no.

 

[TheMule93]

The length that people go to defend this trade is crazy. If our GM wasn't named Yzerman he would be catching so much shit right now.

 

[HisNoodliness]

I am not sure what Walman was doing or did and we may never know but its clear this was not a hockey transaction, this was personal. Taking a loss on the trade sends a message. You weren't just traded, you were gotten rid of. Obviously not what the fans want to see on paper but seriously people this trade will not put a dent in the future. If this were a trend then yeah, but its not so no.

There is a worrying trend though. If a defenseman is good we get rid of them. If a defenseman is bad, we covet them. That's a concerning trend.