Loved the Yzerman answer on Walman in the press conference. I mean, people, do you have to rub his nose in it?
- NC_Scott
Kinda, yeah.
Again, to recap, the publicly available information is that:
- Yzerman determined he had to get rid of Walman quickly for some reason, implied but not outright stated to be of a personal nature, despite the fact that he was by all other indications a productive player on a team-friendly contract.
- This was apparently so urgent and serious that Yzerman contacted a team with the necessary cap space and roster spot and offered Walman plus a pick for literally nothing in return. He did not appear to actively shop Walman to anyone else, and credible sources say that other GMs would have been willing to trade assets for Walman if they'd known he was available.
- Walman continued his solid play with San Jose, and was eventually flipped for a first round pick, with no salary retention. In other words, in less than a year, he went from "Yzerman willing to give up extra assets just to get rid of him" to "Oilers willing to give up a first to get him." And it's not like his on-ice performance was dramatically better in San Jose than it was in Detroit. He was good in both places.
Any reasonable person looking at these facts from the outside would conclude that it was horrible asset management by Yzerman. Every time he is asked about it his defense basically amounts to "it was necessary because of reasons, trust me bro."
I get that people naturally want to give Yzerman the benefit of the doubt, but I really struggle to come up with any plausible, justifiable explanation that would justify not, at the
very very least, actively shopping Walman to get the best return instead of dumping in secret for nothing. Even if there's a deeply personal, locker-room related problem motivating the deal, it doesn't make sense that it would be both
so bad that Walman had negative trade value in summer 2024, but also
so inconsequential that San Jose apparently had no problem making him a big part of their team and Edmonton had no problem giving up a first for him.
My best guess is that it's some combination of (1) Walman was personally disliked by management/coaches/teammates and (2) Yzerman needed to clear salary fast to trade for somebody else, probably Trouba, which didn't materialize anyway and also reflects badly on Red Wings management. That's the only explanation that makes sense to me. And if it's even close to correct, then it was a pretty colossal screwup.
