For Steve Yzerman, selling was a chore. It eventually gave way to standing pat, which for everyone else was a bore. Finally, on Friday, the Red Wings returned to the store. In Yzerman's seventh trade deadline calling the shots, they met market prices and checked off the biggest item on their shopping list.
"A different, certainly, approach," Yzerman acknowledged.
The Red Wings badly needed a top-four right-shot defenseman as they take aim at a long-overdue playoff berth, and they paid handsomely to get one. Yzerman only knows Justin Faulk "enough to say hello," but knows well what the 15-year vet brings to the ice. He sent a first-round pick, a third-round pick that he acquired in a separate trade Friday and a well-regarded prospect in Dmitri Buchelnikov to the Blues to add a smart, mobile puck-mover to a blueline desperate for more stability.
Faulk will be here this season and next as fellow right-shot defenseman Axel Sandin-Pellika grows into a larger role, and will help steady the Wings in the big games that lie ahead.
"Acquiring a guy who has played in the top four, it solidifies our D corps," said Yzerman.
That was the main item in his cart. Yzerman also made a smaller purchase that could yield bigger rewards in the playoffs, sending a fourth-round pick to Ottawa for old friend David Perron. The 37-year-old, expected to return from a groin injury in a couple weeks, remains one of those guys you want on your side when the competition heats up. As the Red Wings know well, Perron is "a pain" when he's on the other team. He's also got the offensive stick to deepen Detroit's lineup.
A year ago, the Red Wings mostly sat out the deadline amid a six-game slide that tanked their playoff push, as captain Dylan Larkin lamented the "spark on the ice" and the "morale boost" that never arrived. Two years ago, the Red Wings mostly sat out the deadline amid a seven-game slide that tanked their playoff push, as Larkin was shelved with an injury. Three years ago, the Red Wings sold at the deadline amid a six-game slide that tanked their playoff push, as Larkin fought back tears over the departure of his close friend Tyler Bertuzzi.
This is not solely about Larkin, but he represents a group of players who have stumbled at this juncture of the season in the past, and who finally earned a helping hand from their GM.
"Our team has put themselves in a pretty good position, and the players that we acquired, for what it cost us to acquire them, I feel and we as a staff felt it was justified to try to improve our team and give us a better chance of making the playoffs and having any success in the playoffs," said Yzerman.
The Red Wings are a funny team, although Yzerman was hardly amused watching them blow a 3-1 third-period lead at home on Wednesday. They're fourth in the East and on pace to crack 100 points for the first time in more than 10 years, but they're the only current playoff team in the conference with a negative goal differential. Their five-on-five goal differential (minus-18) is even worse, which, in years past, might have been part of Yzerman's rationale for standing pat.
But how many years can you justify waiting? And realistically, how many first-round picks does a team need to make, especially when this year's pick will likely fall in the back half of the first round, and the player will be years away from the NHL. The Red Wings have selected nine players in the first round of the draft in Yzerman's tenure, and most have paid dividends. But it was time to pay back the players -- and even the fans -- who have suffered through this nine-year playoff drought. It was time, once and for all, to end it.
"You have a long-term plan and each year you kind of have to adjust that plan based on where you are, and today we’re sitting in a playoff spot and we want to stay there," Yzerman said. "It’s hard to give up a first-round pick, it really is. ... But at some point you gotta give up something good, and in today’s market if you’re not giving up a first, we’re not getting these guys."
The alternative is giving up higher-level prospects, and the Red Wings went back and forth as they mapped out their plans at the deadline. They had three options, the way Yzerman saw it. It's the one they eschewed that signals how things are starting to change around here.
"That was a debate we had had in a lot of these discussions: do we want to give up the prospect, do we want to give up the picks, or do we want to do nothing? And we decided this is the time to do something," Yzerman said. "If we do well, we don’t know what that pick is today — we have a range — and we don’t know who that player would turn out to be, so that was the ultimate decision on why we wanted to use a first."
No, it wasn't the sort of day that triggers a run to the Cup. But it felt like the dawn of a new day, even as the Red Wings bowed out on the biggest names on the block like Robert Thomas and Vincent Trochcek. They're "prepared to make that (big) move, for the right player," Yzerman said, and both centers looked like ideal pieces to Detroit's puzzle. But the Blues and the Rangers had the right to set astronomical prices and wait for a buyer to deliver the moon. None did.
"That just wasn’t an option here for us to consider at this time," Yzerman said.
The Red Wings can revisit either conversation in the offseason, if they wish. By then, they should be coming off their first playoff appearance in a decade, and perhaps a mini run into May. It will go a long way for their core players like Larkin, Lucas Raymond, Alex DeBrincat, Moritz Seider, Simon Edvinsson and Marco Kasper -- among others -- to feel the strain and pain of postseason hockey.
It will also be a gain around the league. The Red Wings had no trouble landing top-tier players when they played into May, and sometimes June, every year. They need to refurbish their reputation if they intend to start hunting marquee free agents again, like, say, Quinn Hughes, or Cale Makar, or Nikita Kucherov in the summer of 2027. You don't bag big game, without winning big games.
In the meantime, the players that are here need to take care of business down the stretch. Yzerman did his part. It's time they do theirs. He winced watching them "sit back" with a 3-1 lead, go into a shell and give away a win Wednesday against Vegas. It was unbecoming of a team with real ambition, and "that's a little bit of a habit we’ve had, in some games where we’ve had a good lead."
"I encourage our guys to keep making plays and keep making them under pressure and in tight situations. Not irresponsible or careless, but make plays. That’s what I want to see us do: play with confidence, use your skill, use your brain probably even more than skill, and make the right play," Yzerman said.
On Friday, Yzerman made the right move, for this team, and this group of players, and even this impossibly patient fanbase. He strengthened his roster where it was weakest and sent the right message to his locker room. No, the Red Wings aren't Cup contenders, no matter what the standings might say. They aren't suddenly 'going for it.' But they're finally going for something, in search of something more.