As Steve Yzerman approaches the trade deadline in a playoff race for the first time as GM of the Red Wings, he recalls being in a similar spot in his first season as GM of the Lightning. Buoyed by a 20-year-old center named Steven Stamkos and a 20-year-old defenseman named Victor Hedman, the Lightning were rising in the East. When the deadline rolled around, Yzerman stood pat other than to trade a third-round pick for help on the blueline and then watched his team come within a game of making the Stanley Cup Finals.
He walked away with two lessons: Anything can happen in the NHL playoffs and there's always -- always -- value in making them.
"Now here we sit today with the Red Wings," Yzerman said this week on the Agent Provocateur podcast, "we're not too far out of it."
No they are not. In fact, by points percentage entering Thursday night's game against the Rangers that stands as the biggest in Hockeytown since Henrik Zetterberg was passing pucks to Pavel Datsyuk, the Red Wings are a playoff team in the East. This will no doubt inform Yzerman's decision-making ahead of the March 3 trade deadline. In some ways, it already has: Detroit signed defenseman Olli Maatta, who would have had lots of suitors around the league as a rental, to a two-year extension last week.
Don't be surprised if a couple more extensions are coming down the pike, even for a player like Tyler Bertuzzi who was an obvious trade candidate just a few weeks ago. Bertuzzi, Yzerman might be thinking, is exactly the kind of puck-hounding, hard-nosed forward the Red Wings will want on their side in playoff-like games to come -- not to mention actual playoff games as soon as this season.
"A month ago, we weren’t this close," Yzerman said. "There were more teams to jump and you think, ‘OK, let’s plan for the deadline.' We just re-signed Olli Maatta, who was a pending free agent. Some of our (other pending) free agents we say we’ll try to get signed before the deadline, some guys we still have interest in signing and it may be after the deadline, I’m not sure."
Point is, Yzerman isn't looking to ship out players for picks and/or prospects like at deadlines past. He might even try to engineer the reverse, if it helps the Red Wings fill a void in their future -- goal-scoring winger, anyone? (Timo Meier, anyone? Brock Boeser?) After taking his first big swing in Detroit last summer, don't rule out another in the next couple weeks. Mostly, Yzerman wants his young team, buoyed by 21-year-old defenseman Moritz Seider and 20-year-old forward Lucas Raymond, to saddle up and chase the playoffs.
"We’re going to have to make some decisions in the next eight or nine days," he said. "Ultimately, we’re still trying to build, we’re still trying to get better. I wouldn’t expect us to go out and be trading our best assets for rental players or anything like that. We wouldn’t be opposed to making a trade, but it would be players that we want to know are a part of our future, and doing that would ultimately require giving up your young assets. We’re not opposed to doing that, but it’s gotta be somebody who’s going to be here with us."
The Red Wings' biggest obstacle to the playoffs might be their schedule. Their reward for a lights-out road trip that criss-crossed the United States and Canada is a pair of home games this week with the Rangers and Lightning, followed by a back-to-back in Ottawa. A back-to-back with the Bruins looms next month. Looking further ahead, eight of the Wings' final 10 games come against current playoffs teams.
Then again, they have five games in hand on one wild card team (Islanders) and four on the other (Panthers). The playoffs are within reach. Question is, how much does Yzerman want to stretch to make them?
"You have to really analyze your team," he said. "You see where you’re at, do we have a chance to make it? What’s the cost of improving our team to give us a better chance? I do believe there’s great value in making the playoffs. One, from a business perspective short term, but long term, for your players, particularly your younger guys to get the experience. Having these must-win games down the stretch, even if it’s to get into the playoffs for the first time, that’s a great experience."
He still remembers those games in 2011. Immediately after Yzerman kept his team in tact at the deadline, the Lighting lost four in a row, then six of seven, then 10 of 12. But they went 7-1 down the stretch to make the playoffs -- and from there, anything happened.
"There was a lot of value in making that playoff," Yzerman said. "For me, we got a chance to make it here. It’s going to be tough, there’s good teams in a similar spot to us. Ultimately, we’re still trying to build for the future. To be giving up high picks and things like that, I wouldn’t want to. But if our team made the playoffs, nobody would say that was a bad thing for us, really.
"Regardless of what happened when you got in, it wouldn’t be a bad thing."
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