Like Ken Holland for all those years with the Red Wings, Steve Yzerman grew pretty accustomed to waiting his turn on draft night as general manager of the Lightning.
Tampa Bay never picked higher than 14th in the final five years of Yzerman's tenure. In two of those years, the team didn't have a first round pick at all. As Holland could tell you, that's the price of success.
Yzerman is stepping into a much different situation in Detroit. The Red Wings will pick sixth overall next Friday in the NHL Draft.
No, they won't land one of the big two in Jack Hughes and Kaapo Kakko. And the best defenseman in the class, Bowen Byram, figures to be out of their reach as well. But one way or another, the Wings are going to leave Vancouver happy.
"We think we're going to get a good prospect, yes," Yzerman told reporters Thursday.
And compared to his most recent drafts in Tampa Bay, Yzerman has a decent idea of who that prospect will be.
"You get later in the draft and pick 26th or 27th, it's a little bit more uncertainty leading into the first round because you don't really know who's going to be there," he said. "You have to watch a wider group of players to be prepared for that pick. At sixth, you can kind of narrow down that group.
"I would say I have a group of six or seven. Pretty certain two players are going to be gone 1, 2. From that third pick through the 12th to the 15th pick, you ask all 31 teams, it could be a very different order. There's a group there we think our pick is going to come out of, and we'll be excited about any of those guys."
So here's who's likely in play for the Red Wings.
Three centers in Dylan Cozens, Trevor Zegras and Kirby Dach. Two wingers in Cole Caufield and Matthew Boldy. And there's an outside chance that Byram could fall. And don't rule out winger Vasili Podkolzin, though he's committed to his KHL team through 2021.
Cozens and Dach bring size, speed and skill down the middle. Zegras is a bit smaller, but no less of a playmaker. Caufield has arguably the best shot in the draft. Boldy is a creative player off the wing. Podkolzin, once considered a top-three prospect, is a bull up and down the ice. And Byram -- knock on wood -- is the two-way defenseman the Red Wings desperately need.
However things shake out prior to Detroit's pick, Yzerman made one thing clear: "We're not targeting a particular position."
In other words, "Our philosophy is we need the best player available."
Asked if he places a particular emphasis on attributes like size, speed or skill, Yzerman said, "Not at that particular pick. Every player has a combination of all those attributes, and I wouldn't really emphasize more so one over the other. Ultimately they have to have some degree of all those things, and we take who we think is the best prospect."
As for the possibility of a trade, either to move up or down in the first round, Yzerman said he hasn't yet had any talks. But with the draft still a week away, there's a possibility that will change.
