We were leading the entire league in the standings at the time of Howard's injury in early February and he was expected back. We were going to get Helm back, Lidstrom and Datsyuk weren't hurt going into the deadline like they would be going into the playoffs. We hadn't seen Babcock really get worked from a coaching perspective in a series since the Edmonton debacle. There were tons of reasons to be buyers, solidify your d-core third pairing and provide insurance for Stuart's walk away from the team.
Almost everyone who dumps on the Quincey trade pretty much does so with complete hindsight. Sure a couple can say, hey I didn't like it a ton at the time, but it was a contender move and we were legitimately contenders and it even had a future element. He also even re-signed, so we got a lot of mileage out of that pick. Maatta is also the guy we missed out on really, not Vasy though I guess you can pull whomever you choose because that makes the argument more fun.
Most of the deadline buys made hockey sense, they didn't work out unfortunately but you can see the logic on several of the most talked about ones on this forum. It's a lot easier to sit with the end result and say what were you thinking. They were thinking Quincey gave them flexibility that year and moving forward. Heck the pundits agreed, I remember when the playoffs started the guys on NBCSN and up in Canada both had the Wings as having the best blueline in the league. One of the narratives, heck they have Quincey on their third pair, can you believe that...
Turns out Lidstrom was going to get hurt, helm was going to get re-injured, Datsyuk was going to be hurt, Trotz was going to coach circles around Mike Babcock and Rinne was going to be lights out for a series. Tough hand to be dealt for sure.
