Jake Walman was dealt by the Detroit Red Wings in the summer, and now a top insider has suggested something was going on behind the scenes to force a trade.

The past few months have meant many changes for Jake Walman, who was signed to an extension by the Detroit Red Wings before being traded away as a salary-cap dump to the San Jose Sharks.

Then, the Sharks would flip him to the Edmonton Oilers in exchange for a conditional first-round pick, and unsurprisingly, that saw plenty of backlash for Red Wings GM Steve Yzerman, who completely fumbled the handling of a very valuable asset.

While few details were given, reporter Andy Strickland has suggested that something was going on behind the scenes that made Detroit want to make a deal.

“They didn’t just pay San Jose a second-round pick to get rid of Jake Walman, who they just committed a contract extension to, and they’re paying him $3.4 million. So something, right? There was something going on, I don’t know exactly what it is. I heard there was something. I don’t believe his relationship with the coaching staff was the best, and there was some miscommunication on some stuff. … I reached out to him after the trade, and I talked to him when he was in town with San Jose … There was stuff going on.”

Unsurprisingly, Walman was caught completely off guard by the deal after he had just inked a new extension, stating that he felt like he was simply thrown away by the Red Wings after the trade went through.

“I was a little bit shocked that they just threw me away. That’s how I felt. I was upset. I wanted to prove people wrong, at that point, the following year. I thought we were building something in Detroit, and I was going to be a part of it.”

We may never quite know exactly what it was about Walman or whether it was a specific incident that caused Yzerman to move on from the talented defenseman, but after giving up an asset to move him to a team that then got a first-round pick out of him, it’s safe to say that the heat is turning up on the Red Wings GM after this and several other bad moves.

 

By Admin1