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.