Wings Send Tatar to Vegas, Keep Green as Trade Deadline Passes

The only move the Detroit Red Wings made on the NHL’s trade deadline day was to send forward Tomas Tatar to the Vegas Golden Knights for a trio of draft picks.

Tatar to Vegas for a 1st this year, 2nd next year and a 3rd in 2021.

— Pierre LeBrun (@PierreVLeBrun) February 26, 2018

As much as I didn’t want to lose Tatar, that’s an impressive haul for him and it’ll help kickstart Detroit’s rebuild.  It was always rumored that one of he or Gustav Nyquist would be moved and Tatar probably had a higher value.

Unfortunately, none of the other rumors surrounding Detroit came to fruition.  Luke Glendening and Gustav Nyquist and Darren Helm and Danny DeKeyser and Xavier Ouellet and – most importantly – Mike Green are all still Red Wings.

Glendening was always going to be a longshot.  Helm and DeKeyser as well.  Nyquist was probably going to stay if Tatar went so that’s not really a surprise, either.

Ouellet… It would have taken a team looking for just a little cheap depth, hoping a change of scenery helped.  I could have seen that happening but it’s not surprising that it didn’t.

Green, though, is difficult to swallow, even though I called it repeatedly.  He was supposed to be the Wings’ big trade piece and there was apparently absolutely no market for him.  Some of that is out of Detroit’s control, as why would Tampa want Green when they could get Ryan McDonagh.  It’s a bad look, though, when the good teams don’t even want your supposedly good players.

But that’s what makes the Tatar deal so much more important.  Tatar would have helped the Wings’ now.  He would have been fun to watch now.  But it’s clear that Detroit doesn’t have the assets to make big trades and doesn’t have the cap space to make big signings.  They need draft picks and they need to hit on those draft picks.

I don’t have a ton of faith in the organization to actually make good use of the picks, but they have to try.