I’m personally tired of this discussion, just because it’s been discussed to death on here, but I couldn’t find anything else to put in here.
The June 24-25 event in Buffalo, where the Wings made seven selections, took place a week after Pavel Datsyuk announced he would return to Russia, even though he had a year left on his contract at a $7.5 million cap hit. General manager Ken Holland unloaded the deal on Arizona in exchange for flipping first-round picks (Wings dropped from 16th to 20th) and the Coyotes’ second-round pick. Four years later, that pick has yielded the biggest payoff
for the Wings.