Notes: Yzerman discusses trades, state of team on deadline day

DETROIT -- In the end, both of the players the Red Wings held out of Sunday night's game against the Calgary Flames ended up getting traded.
In fact, both Mike Green and Andreas Athanasiou went to Edmonton, where Oilers general manager and former Wings general manager Ken Holland now toils.

Shortly after midnight, the Wings sent Green to the Oilers for injured forward Kyle Brodziak and a conditional draft pick.
The pick is a fourth-round selection in the 2020 NHL Entry Draft but would flip to a third-round pick in the 2021 draft if the Oilers make it to the conference finals and Green plays in half of the games.
Monday afternoon, the Wings sent Athanasiou and forward Ryan Kuffner to the Oilers for center Sam Gagner, a second-round pick in 2020 and a second-round pick in 2021.

"We haven't made the playoffs for a few years, we're not going to make the playoffs this year, so that's really dictated what we did here," executive vice president and general manager Steve Yzerman said. "Ultimately we have to decide who we're going to keep and if we're going to move guys, we're not just going to move guys just for the sake of moving them. We have to weigh what the return is for each player and ultimately the return was two second-round picks and we felt that was a great value for what we're trying to do."
Athanasiou, 25, was originally drafted in the fourth round, 110th overall, in the 2012 draft.
After a 30-goal, 54-point season in 76 games last year, Athanasiou had 10 goals, 14 assists and was minus-45 in 46 games this year.
"It was a difficult year," Yzerman said. "He came into training camp, he had a minor injury that nagged him throughout the preseason. Early in the season in a game he had numerous scoring chances, they just didn't go in. Nothing has really clicked for us in any way, it's just been a bad year. What could go wrong has gone wrong. I'm not singling out Andreas Athanasiou. Mostly he dealt with injuries and couldn't get into a rhythm. The season just flies by, it's hard to get things turned around. Before you know it, you're 60 games into it and you're at the trade deadline."

Gagner, 30, had 12 points (5-7-12) in 36 games for the Oilers this season. Yzerman said he is expected to be a regular in the Wings lineup.
"We gotta get a visa for him," Yzerman said. "I don't think that one's gonna take too long, so I'm not sure he'll have it for tomorrow night but hopefully we'll have it here sooner than later, possibly Thursday. And added bonus from Sam Gagner, having another right shot in our forward lineup. We only had Luke Glendening as the one, so we'd like to get him in there because it would help."
The Wings will now look for future help since they will have three second-round picks in this summer's draft -- their own, Edmonton's and Washington's.
With the Tampa Bay Lightning, Yzerman struck gold with some of his later picks.
In the 2011 draft, Yzerman took forward Nikita Kucherov in the second round, 58th overall.
Kucherov, 26, won the Hart Memorial Trophy, Art Ross Trophy and Ted Lindsay Award after scoring 41 goals and 87 assists in 82 games in the 2018-19 season.
Kucherov leads all players from the 2011 draft in scoring with 537 points (217-320-537) in 507 games.
Yzerman also drafted Brayden Point in the third round, 79th overall, in the 2014 draft.
Point, 23, has 58 points (22-36-58) in 58 games this season after recording 92 points (41-51-92) in 79 games last season.
"We don't know who those picks are going to be," Yzerman cautioned. "Ultimately, I believe you get as many picks as you can, as many high picks you can, just to increase your odds. We're rebuilding, we got to give up something if we want to be a good team 3-4-5 years down the road and somewhere along the way we're going to have to hit on some of these picks and the only way to do it is to keep them and get more.
"Double-A has good options to play with in Edmonton and he could potentially put up big numbers and I hope for him and Kenny and the Oilers it works out really well for them. Ultimately, we accomplished what we wanted to do and hopefully whether it's the seconds or thirds or somewhere along the way, we need some of these picks to pan out for us.
"To sit there and hope our first rounder is going to work out every year, we need to do better than that. The reality is our first rounder is not going to work out every year. I can't tell you where they're going to come from but we need the picks and we'll keep adding them when we can."
Yzerman said that there were a few minor things that they had discussions about that never came to fruition.
But none of those discussions involved Jonathan Bernier and Jimmy Howard.
"I would just say in general, on our goaltending, teams didn't call about our goaltenders and we weren't looking to necessarily move them but we didn't have any discussion with anyone about our goaltenders," Yzerman said.
Green's departure leaves not only a void on defense but also on the power play as he had been a mainstay there when healthy.
"I think Cody Goloubef will be here, another player we claimed off waivers," Yzerman said. "I think he'll be here tonight, so he'll be available I think tomorrow, assuming everything goes okay with his visa. We expect it to. In all likelihood we'll call up one more D-man. We sent Gustav Lindstrom down to make him eligible for the playoffs. We're checking on the health of a couple of players but it all likelihood we'll bring one up."
ROUGH SEASON: There's no sugarcoating the fact that the Red Wings are having a rough season, the roughest since Yzerman was a young player.
The Wings are 15-45-4 (34 points) in 64 games.
In 1985-86, the Wings finished 17-57-6 (40 points) in 80 games.
Although Yzerman joked that he didn't remember that season, he does know just what it's like to go through something like this.
"I assume some of these guys will go to the world championships and play and I hope as many that get invited go and I hope some of them win a gold medal there and that'll be a good thing," Yzerman said. "You know what, you feel sorry for yourself for a little while and then you take a break and then you get back in the gym and start training and get ready for next year. Things change in a hurry. Again, it's all part of your career and it's all part of the process. It doesn't do anybody good to feel sorry for themselves or for us to feel sorry for ourselves as an organization. We know what we gotta do. I don't know what our record's going to be next year but a lot of things will be different, our team will be different. We're adding more prospects into the organization, our salary cap situation is going to be a little bit more favorable and we'll just kind of continue along the path.
"But for the players, it's tough. Again, I've gone through the experience after '85-86, it was my third year in the league, it was a terrible year. I got injured personally, it was a terrible year for our team. Next year we went to the semifinals. Things changed in a hurry. Now I'm not predicting that for next year but you get ready, every year brings new hope and every offseason brings hope and the players get psyched up and dust yourself off and away you go again."
While others may see things only as bleak, Yzerman does find positives in this season and hopes the fans can stick it out through the hard times to get to the better times as he did as a player.
"I think we're fortunate here that this is a hockey market, that people like the game, people play the game, adults play it, kids play it, boys and girls play it," Yzerman said. "So it's a hockey market so there's interest. Obviously they want the team to win, they want the team to do well. What I'm hoping people will embrace is Dylan Larkin, Anthony Mantha, Filip Zadina coming, Filip Hronek this year, embrace their careers and the development of their careers. We watched Filip Zadina come in, we kind of expected him to be in the American League this year. We brought him up out of kind of necessity but he did very well and it's encouraging. Unfortunately, he hurts his leg and he's out but we're seeing progress there, we're seeing progress in Filip Hronek, the Dylans and Anthony before he got hurt, we're seeing progress.
"So we're hoping next year if we can add another one and each of these kids takes another step, it's all part of the process of us becoming a really good team again and one day we look back on it and our fans look back on it and say, 'I remember when Zadina came in, I remember when Dylan came in, those years, whatever we're in, 2019-20, boy, what a year that was. You guys struggled through it and appreciate the whole process.' That's kind of what I'm hoping everyone embraces.
"The fan base has been pretty darn good. They've been extremely positive, they've been vocal and for the most part in our home games, even when we lose last night against Calgary, we hung in there and made it an entertaining hockey game. Again, what I'm hoping people embrace this thing, takes some time. We've been through it before, the Red Wings did it in the '50s, we did it though the '80s and the '90s. We're going to have to do it again. I look at the Pittsburgh Penguins. In 1984, they draft Mario Lemieux first overall and build a program and win two Stanley Cups and then they slip to the bottom again and they get Sidney Crosby and build this thing up and they've won three of them. Kind of what we're trying to do here as well.
"These cities that have been in it for a long time, they've seen the ups and downs and we're seeing a new generation of hockey fans who haven't lived it yet. Now they're living it."
BELIEF IN BLASHILL: Only Tampa Bay's Jon Cooper and Winnipeg's Paul Maurice have been coaching their teams longer than Jeff Blashill.
With the team's poor record, some have wondered why Blashill remained in place.
"I've enjoyed working with him," Yzerman said. "When I came in last summer, we talked about our team, what my expectations were, what we hoped to do. It's unfair to judge Jeff Blashill on our team's record, really it is. I put this team together, I had expectations for the year. My expectations … I don't think this is a playoff team, honestly. Lot of things would have to go right for us to be a playoff team. That hasn't happened.
"Lot of things went wrong that we didn't necessarily perceive, whether it be injuries or whatnot. Jeff has done a very good job, he and his staff with these players. It's been a very difficult season and I think they've managed it very well and coached the team very well under very difficult circumstances."
The Red Wings have a team option on Blashill's contract for the 2020-21 season.
"I'm not going to make any decisions on anything until the season is over," Yzerman said. "We're going to sit down and go over it, but I think Jeff has done a good job. I've enjoyed working with him and as of right now, I don't plan to make a change, so you read into that what you want."
NOT A TRADE BUT WAIVER PICKUP: The Red Wings also acquired another player Monday, although it had nothing to do with the trade deadline.
They claimed left wing Dmytro Timashov on waivers from the Toronto Maple Leafs.

In 39 games, the 23-year-old rookie forward has nine points (4-5-9), 83 hits and is plus-1.
"He is a talented, strong, I think what we consider a good two-way player," Yzerman said. "We saw him a lot in the American Hockey League playing for the (Toronto) Marlies. Seen a little bit in the NHL. He's still relatively young. We think he could be a player. You claim him off waivers, so it's just a dollar figure. We think that there's some upside to him that he can help our lineup.
"We've got some visa issues with him, so I'm not exactly sure when he's gonna be in the lineup but potentially for the rest of this year and into the start of next year, provide a little bit of offense, a good two-way play that we can generate a little bit more goals. I'm not gonna say it's 100 or 200 goals but just another player that can help create some offense and generate it. But I think he's a real good two-player, a strong kid that we think has a chance to be a regular in the NHL."
When the visa issue is resolved, Yzerman expects Timashov to play for the Wings.