The Red Wings head coach offered a hint at his team's potential trade deadline approach after Friday's practice

The NHL trade deadline is one week from today, and after today's practice, Red Wings head coach Derek Lalonde offered a hint as to how his team might approach the deadline.  

When asked about his communication with GM Steve Yzerman at this time of year and his own feelings as to how to handle the deadline,  Lalonde replied, "I think what Steve has done here in his tenure here, obviously the guys in the room is what he built.  I think there's a huge trust from both coaches and players in whatever he does, so I just think there's a confidence in what he does.  We communicate; I'm the coach; I'm comfortable coaching whatever he does bring us.  I know he has the best interest in the micro, which is now, and the macros, the big picture going forward."

He pointed out that fundamentally his own job differs from that of Yzerman because his own attunement to the short term as opposed to a GM's need for a more big picture view.  Lalonde joked, "I want it all. I want a $210 million cap; I wanna spend a ton on every position; I'm a coach. It's my job to win now, and Steve's got to think about the big picture. And he has an entire staff that works on this 24 hours a day. We [as a coaching staff] don't."

Then, more earnestly, he said, "maybe the most aggressive move will be no move at all," going on to add that in this case inaction could equal aggression "because it's confident in the group, and we're still looking at the big picture, but we're comfortable with the group."

Detroit has the cap space to make a splash at the deadline, but it's not clear that the Red Wings have reached an appropriate point in their rebuild for a move of that nature to make sense.  With that in mind, it wouldn't seem crazy for Detroit to more or less stand pat at the deadline. In many ways, some modest moves around the margins seem like the most likely outcome, especially considering Patrick Kane already feels like the team's major in-season addition.

Of course, it's possible Lalonde's comments are merely misdirection ahead of a busy deadline, but it's not hard to see his logic.  The Red Wings have been playing some of their best hockey of the season since the calendar flipped over into 2024, so while there is of course always room for minor improvement, making dramatic changes feels as likely to be detrimental as it is to be beneficial at the moment.

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