Steve Yzerman sounds off on Red Wings offseason (so far)

The Detroit Red Wings entered the 2024 offseason with considerable expectations that they would be using their ample cap space to not only ink franchise cornerstones Moritz Seider and Lucas Raymond to lengthy new deals, but to re-sign select pending free agents as well as attract notable outside talent. 

What transpired wasn't exactly what many had in mind, as some of the biggest fish available including Steven Stamkos, Jonathan Marchessault, Nikita Zadorov, Elias Lindholm, and others all signed elsewhere rather than the Motor City. The Red Wings did take care of an important matter of in-house business, re-signing future Hall of Famer Patrick Kane while also attracting 2-time Stanley Cup winner Vladimir Tarasenko with a two-year deal.

Additionally, they shored up the goaltending position by securing the services of Cam Talbot, who played last season with the Los Angeles Kings. Both Ville Husso and Alex Lyon still have one year remaining on their respective contracts, and according to GM Steve Yzerman, they plan to "play it by ear" with regard to their goaltending.

"We’ll see how Ville’s health is in training camp," Yzerman said. "We expect him to be 100% ready to go. And then we’ll do what we did last year — we’ll play it by ear and figure it out as we go along."

As far as some of the more notable free agents whom Detroit was unable to land, Yzerman hinted that there was interest but that the numbers didn't add up to his liking. 

"We had some interest in one that we thought might be a fit," Yzerman said. "These things happen very quickly and we decided very quickly that it’s going to be really some major surgery here to try and get it done. And we didn’t want to waste everybody’s time getting there. So one player we thought might have been a really good fit, but it was going to be a challenge to get it done, and the concern on July 1 is, everybody is gone."

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