Wings Retool on the Fly Part 2: Deadline Day

If you read part 1 of this series you know how the Wings ended up as sellers at the deadline. Now in part 2 let's review what went down on deadline day. 

By 3pm Pacific things were looking pretty quiet. Only 2 GM's were around talking trade and GM Evans felt that chances of making a deal were pretty low. After a few consecutive losses, the Wings had decided that being a seller at the deadline was the only position that made sense to take and began the process of shopping many of the veterans on expiring contracts that had been accumulated throughout the past few months. Cullen, Emelin, Ehrhoff, and Grossman were all likely to be headed out the door in free agency so it only made sense to explore trading them all. 

The first domino to fall, Matt Cullen, was shipped off to the upstart Carolina Hurricanes along with recently acquired Tyler Graovac for intruiging youngster Brendan Leipsic and a 5th round pick. GM Evans addressed the media after the move with the following:
"When his name was sent out to the public there was an immediate surge of GM's rushing to the phone to see what the price would be. Matt Cullen was signed in free agency in 2016 and has served as captain of the Red Wings for the past 2 seasons. It was a tough call to part with his leadership but I felt we had internal candidates, namely Bellemare, capable of filling his checking line role."

Secondly, the Wings made a 1 for 1 swap sending Christian Ehrhoff to the Kings in exchange for Deryk Engelland. Ehrhoff only managed to get into 7 games with the Wings due to a roster crunch but the Wings won all 7 games. Engelland is signed for another year and figures to be a big part of next season's blueline corps, since he is having a career season in the NHL. 

Next up, the Wings made a swap of future pieces with the Hawks. The Wings sent dynamic youngster Denis Guryanov, a 2015 1st, to Chicago in exchange for a small but feisty Kevin Roy and a 5th round pick. The deal also included a swap of 5th round picks. 

Reluctantly, the Wings then agree to send veteran Alexei Emelin to rival Montreal for an interesting post-hype prospect in Ryan Murphy plus Andreas Martinsen. If you like Martinsen please call the Wings asap...

As the deadline approached the Wings decided to aggresively shop the hulking Nicklas Grossman. A sturdy defender making under 600k seemed like the perfect addition to a cap-strapped playoff team. The Wings were able to land young goalie JF Berube in exchange for Grossman and 3 guys named who-dat.

In the most interesting move of the Wings deadline day, the recently signed Vincent Hinostroza was traded to Nashville along with minor leaguer Cameron Gaunce for a 2019 2nd, a 2018 5th, and prospect William Lockwood. GM Evans had the following to say about the deal: "Hinostroza has been off to a fantastic start in his young NHL career and shares many traits with 2017-18 breakout star Yanni Gourde. This is really not a player I was planning to move. However, William Lockwood is a prospect I really like and our organization desperately needs to replenish our prospect depth via the draft. This trade adds 2 picks and a good prospect for a guy who is still an unknown commodity."

By this point in time just a few minutes remained before the deadline, and Chicago had been desperately shopping Martin Hanzal all night. GM Evans decided to take pitty on the poor bastard and called him up with an offer, which was promptly shot down. However, the two teams were able to hammer out a last minute deal to send Martin Hanzal to the Wings in exchange for prospect Mikhail Vorobyov, showing that GM Evans is one cool customer.

In the final attempt at a deadline trade, the Wings sent out a number of last minute offers to the Senators and an unnamed 2nd team in the hopes of finding Andy Welinski a new home. It turns out one of the offers was appealing to the Senators and a last minute deal was struck, sending Welinski and prospect Deven Sideroff, acquired in the Kucherov trade, to Ottawa for a 2019 2nd round pick.

In summary, GM Evans and the Wings put in a solid day of work at the phones and were able to reshape the look of the team for the rest of the season by sending out a host of sturdy veterans, and bringing in a handful of prospects and young players, as well as Martin Hanzal. The Wings were able to sell without hurting the team's slim playoff hopes too much, thanks to the presence of depth options like Bellemare, Stuart, and Quincey, and the influx of Engelland and Hanzal.