The moves weren’t long in happening.
Less than 24 hours after agreeing to terms on a one-year deal with holdout forward Andreas Athanasiou, the Detroit Red Wings, in desperate need of salary cap space, traded center Riley Sheahan to the Pittsburgh Penguins and shipped defenseman Ryan Sproul to the New York Rangers.
The Wings received forward Scott Wilson ($575,000) from the Penguins and a 2018 third round draft pick in exchange for Sheahan, who had scored two goals in his last 93 regular-season and playoff games for Detroit.
“I think he had a tough year last year,” understated Detroit GM Ken Holland. “I like Riley but he was only getting 7-8 minutes a game this year.”
There had been speculation of Sheahan’s move to the Penguins since the preseason.
“Pittsburgh was looking for a third-line center,” Holland said. “He can get an opportunity there. Scott Wilson can play on our bottom six. We’re getting an NHL player in return.
“We’re in good shape now from a cap standpoint.”
It was evident that whatever affliction that had infected Sheahan’s game last season carried over into this season. If it was indeed possible for him to look worse than he had a year ago, so far he was accomplishing that seemingly impossible achievement.
“Sports is about opportunity,” Holland said. “He had a real good opportunity his first year when he was called up. (Pavel) Datsyuk and (Henrik) Zetterberg were injured.”
Sheahan looked to have a real future, netting 13 goals in 2014-15 and 14 goals in 2015-16 before being sucked into the vortex of last season’s debacle, where he didn’t light a red lamp until netting a pair in Detroit’s final game of the season.
Earlier this season, Sheahan admitted that the outcome of last season’s campaign did gnaw away at him.
“It’s something you dwell on a bit, but it’s a whole new year a fresh start that’s what I keep convincing myself,” he said. “I don’t know what happened. I can’t put a finger on it,
The permanent move of Dylan Larkin to center bumped Sheahan to fourth-line duty and the impending arrival of Michael Rasmussen next season was likely to bump Sheahan to press box duty and evaporate whatever opportunity was left for him in a Wings uniform.
At the same time, it is weird to consider that Sheahan is more valuable to the two-time defending Stanley Cup champions than he is to the Red Wings.
“He’ll have a different, better opportunity elsewhere,” Holland said. “There’s only so much ice time to go around. There just hasn’t been the opportunity for him here.”
On the flip side, Wilson couldn’t get into Pittsburgh’s lineup, but the Wings think he will be a fit for them.
“He didn’t have tons of opportunity in Pittsburgh,” Holland said. “We wanted to bring in forward with NHL experience.
“Our scouts feel he’s a bottom six forward. He can skate, he’s got some hockey sense, he’s a pretty good player.”
Adding a draft pick while shedding Sheahan was a bonus.
“We’re trying to continue to acquire draft picks and build through the draft,” Holland said, “trying to give our scouts more opportunities at the draft. To become a good team, it’s got to be done through the draft.”
Sproul had also clearly fallen out of favor. The bizarre twist to this scenario is that when the Wings traded Brendan Smith to the Rangers last season, it was supposed to be Sproul’s time to shine. Instead, he blew out a knee and was passed by others on the depth chart, both in the NHL and at Grand Rapids, where Joe Hicketts, Filip Hronek and Vili Saarijarvi were all moving up the prospect list while Sproul was trending downward.
Truth be told, when he did play, Sproul never showed enough acumen with or without the puck to be considered for regular NHL work.
“We needed to alleviate the backlog of D-men there,” Holland said.
In an effort to get him more regular work, the Wings also reassigned Saarijarvi to ECHL Toledo.
Puempel was a 2011 first round pick of the Ottawa Senators who has never transitioned scoring at the junior and minor pro ranks into NHL numbers.
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