Hey, what's Steve Iserman doing? With the Stanley Cup being awarded yesterday, the news is going to come fast and furious with the draft on Friday. It's already Tuesday. And the moves are coming in quickly. Linus Ohmark was traded to the sentence 20 minutes before game seven. But I wanted to do a video on this one because the Detroit Red Wings made two deals today, and they're weird. The first one, not so weird. It's pretty black and white, and I understand it. It's a trade with the Nashville Predators, where the Red Wings get Jesse Kiskinin and a second-round pick this year that is the 53rd overall pick. In return, the Nashville Predators get prospect Andrew Gibson. So who's Kiskinin and who's Gibson? Kiskinin is a Finnish forward who had a pretty good season in Finland this past season, and he was selected in the third round, 68th overall in last year's 2023 NHL draft. Andrew Gibson is a 6'3 defenseman who shoots right. People like those. But strangely, he was selected 42nd overall in the second round of last year's draft in 2023. So this is weird. You know how sometimes at the draft, a team will trade a pick?

Let's say it's the, I don't know, 10th overall pick. They'll trade the 10th overall pick so that they can move up to eighth. And in exchange to move up those couple spots, they'll tie something else to it, like a second round or a third round or whatever. One team moves up in the draft, they get a better draft pick. One team moves back in the draft, they get more draft picks. That's what the Detroit Red Wings and Nashville Predators did here, except it's like Detroit moved back in last year's draft and the preds moved up in last year's draft. Because basically, the Predators get the 42nd overall pick from 2023. In exchange for the 53rd overall pick this year and the 68th overall pick last year. Detroit loses a defensive prospect, but they gain a forward prospect. Nashville loses a forward prospect and gain a defensive prospect. If that was all the deal was, you can just go, Oh, and shrug your shoulders and go your day. Except that's not where the Red Wings left it. The Red Wings took that second round pick that they got from the Nashville Predators, originally belonging to the Tampa Bay Lightning, because there's nothing the Predators love more than the Tampa Bay Lightning's draft pick.

The Red Wings took that second rounder, 53 third overall, and sent it along with Jake Wallman to the San Jose Sharks. You might say to yourself, Hey, Jake Wallman? He's not bad. Wow, that's interesting. What do the Red Wings get in return? I mean, a regular NHL defenseman, along with a second-round pick, they must be getting something juicy. You're right. They get $3.4 million in cap space because that's what Jake Wallman made, and nothing else. Yep, That's the trade. The Red Wings send Jake Wollman and the 53rd overall pick this year to the San Jose Sharks in exchange for future considerations. Now, future considerations doesn't necessarily mean nothing. It just often means nothing. Future considerations is something you will consider in the future. It's often something like a conditional seventh rounder or a sixth rounder, something like that, based on certain easy to meet or impossible to meet conditions because Listen, I just want to get this contract off the books, says one team, and the other team is like, We will gladly take that contract. In this case, it's the San Jose Sharks who desperately need warm bodies and a roster. Before the Sharks got Barclay Goodro off waivers, they were miles and miles and miles beneath the salary cap floor.

Forget cap space. They were beneath the cap floor. In fact, without even looking, acquiring Goodro and acquiring Wallman for nothing, the Sharks are still beneath the floor. They have a lot of money that they need to spend to even be cap compliant for next year. Cap compliant, but at the bottom. Wallman has a modified no trade clause in his contract, in a contract that runs through this next season and the season after making $3.4 million against the cap. And offensively, Wallman has easily the weirdest stat line I've ever seen on a defenseman. Wallman played 63 games last season with the Detroit Red Wings. Once again, as a defenseman, he had 12 goals, wow, and nine assists. What? Have you ever seen, I've never seen, a defenseman in the NHL who hit double-digit goals and single-digit assists? He has the stats of a goal Like sniping winger, but on D. Obviously, that's not all there is to defense, but you don't typically see teams tying an asset to a defenseman who scored double-digit goals this past season and getting nothing in return. So do the Detroit Red Wings think Jake Wallman is bad and sucks and makes the Red Wings worse?

I find that hard to believe. Listen, he doesn't have to be your favorite player, but at $3.4 million, there are far worse defensemen in this league making far more. The The Red Wings have lots of bizarrely pricey, not too, too pricey, but overpaid defensemen. Ben Schirra, would you take him on your team? A lot of you probably would at 4 point, whatever. Justin Hall at $3.4 million, just like Wallman. Even Olimada at three. Of course, there's the teeny tiny detail that the Red Wings have to sign Shane Gostesbare, who had a billion points for them this past season before July first. Okay, it wasn't a billion, but 10 goals and 46 assists for 56 points from your back end. That's really good. It's Shane Gostesberg. That's a Shane Gostisbare stat line right down to the minus 16 next to it. And probably more importantly, Moritz Cider does not have a contract right now. Now, if he makes it to July first, a team would have to offer Sheet him in order to take him away. My guess is that's not going to happen, but my guess is he's not going to come cheap. Red Wings obviously have a lot of holes on their roster right now.

Lots of teams do this time of year because free agency is coming up. All these teams are going to quickly plug of those holes. The difference is that the Red Wings have nearly $33 million in cap space heading into July first now with the Wallman deal, which begs the question, what is Steve Iserman up to? My guess is he didn't just dump Jake Wallman because, I don't know, he didn't like the jokes he told or whatever. Picks terrible music on road trips. I don't know. Obviously, on a team like the Detroit Red Wings as well, he's freeing up that cap space to use it. The question is on who? We already talked about Shane Gossesbare, maybe they bring him back. I don't know. Maybe they bring back. Well, they definitely bring back more insider at a raise. You still have a lot of money to play with. To me, I see a big gap up front. Patrick Kane was an underrated a important part of that Detroit Red Wings roster. When he was in the lineup, they were better. When he wasn't, they were worse. And now it doesn't sound like he's coming back. He might, it just doesn't sound like it.

We'll see. But is that it? Is it that simple? Is it just Patrick Kane? At this stage in his career? I'm not sure. What about someone who played a hop, skip, and a jump away in Sarnia, upcoming free agent, Stephen Stamkos. Oh, I said it. Oh, yeah. This dude seems to be the free space in any conversation where a team has a lot of money that they want to spend on a forward. Why not Jake Gensel? Why not? The answer is Jake Gensel might not want to go there because the Red Wings miss the playoffs this past year. But why not Jake Gensel? Listen, Red Wings fans, I don't know if you like Steve Iserman as a general manager. I don't know if you don't like him, But I will say as a neutral fan, this dude rules. He's got itchy feet. He's always fidgeting. He is always doing something with his roster. I think over the next few days, which is just going to be absolutely ridiculous, heading into the buy playout season and the draft and free agency, all of those things happen within a week of the words I am speaking. I think Steve Iseman is going to be a very busy bee.

Now, any San Jose Sharks fans watching this video, Steve, you spent a lot of time on the Detroit Red Wings here. What about the Sharks? What But what about the Sharks? They got a living, breathing human being, and that is what they wanted. Steve, that's a little disrespectful. The team theyiced last year was disrespectful. So what do you think about this series of deals from the Detroit Red Wings? Let me know in a comment box down below. But for now, that is it for this one. Thank you very much for watching. Click like if you like this video. Click subscribe to Sdpn because we're going to be real busy over the next few days. Tell all your friends, Sdpn is your place to be for the draft. We got a livestream for night one. Day two of the draft, we're going to have lots of videos that day. And Free Agency, we're going to have videos all day long, culminating with a live recording in the Steve Nangle podcast, a live stream after five o'clock on the day that free agency opens. It's silly. We recorded a podcast right before this video. Two, actually. We got a lot going on.