Detroit Red Wings general manager Steve Yzerman is the clear-cut winner of the biggest trade-deadline deal he made last spring.
He unloaded underachieving forward Andreas Athanasiou to the Edmonton Oilers, in exchange for two second-round picks and veteran forward Sam Gagner. The Oilers, run by former Wings GM Ken Holland, gambled on Athanasiou, who has the skillset to be a dynamic forward and appealed as someone who had the speed to keep up with playing on a line with Connor McDavid.
Athanasiou was in the last year of his contract, and the Wings weren’t going to keep him.