Trading a 2nd and Cholowski for one year of Leddy is a waste of assets. What does that get you? 3% worse lottery odds? That's dumb no matter how you cut it. Where is the elite talent that we got for tanking? Are we really building around a winger and a defenseman? That's the plan? Raymond and Seider are going to carry us to the cup? Or are we saying that Holland's acquisitions Veleno, Larkin, Bergrenn, Zadina, Bert and Rasmussen are the core until Yzerman trades them for futures? We don't have a single elite centerman in the entire organization. Where is that coming from? Yzerman traded away a ton of picks this year. Where are you getting extra picks next year? Apparently dumping Bert. Where and when are you replacing him?
The Ned trade looks like a great move.
Leddy looks flat idiotic.
Losing Cholowski for nothing? Dumb.
What does the lineup look like in 3 years?
Cholowski is a trash minor league level defenseman. Losing him for nothing is not dumb. Picking him in the first place was dumb.
Leddy is a legit top 4 defenseman who can help mentor our young defenseman. He also helps Detroit get over the cap floor
Leddy is also on a UFA contract and if he plays halfway decent is an appreciating asset (52nd overall pick in a wonky draft that can probably be flipped for a late 1st in a deeper draft.)
Leddy also fills a gigantic hole on LD that we could not have filled internally with anyone other than Danny DeKeyser.
The goal shouldn't be lottery win or Stanley cup for the season to be considered an outright success. Would it be great to get Shane Wright on this team? Definitely. Should we race to the bottom with other trash franchises that are already poised to tank WAY harder than Detroit? f*** no.
What we should be trying to do is improve bit by bit, season after season. Right now our "core", if you can even call it that is Larkin, Bertuzzi and Hronek. I think you'll see Detroit move on from 2 of these 3 players by 2023 or 2024. And we'll have hopefully injected more talent into the lineup over that timeframe to get into the postseason and surprise some people.