Red Wings reportedly desperate to trade away former NHL All Star

After the Red Wings missed out on some of the bigger names on the free agency market last year, like Steven Stamkos and Jonathan Marchessault, GM Steve Yzerman snagged Vladimir Tarasenko with a 2-year deal.

Tarasenko was just weeks removed from winning the 2nd Stanley Cup of his career, and did so with the divisional foe Florida Panthers. He had also previously been an NHL All-Star and Stanley Cup winner in 2019 with the St. Louis Blues, during which he routinely reached 30 goals or better.

But Tarasenko struggled to score in Detroit and finished with only 11 goals, his worst output of his career when he played in a full NHL season.

The Red Wings could already be looking to move on from Tarasenko, even though he has a year left with an AAV (average annual value) of $4.75 million on his contract.

Per David Pagnotta of The Fourth Period, Tarasenko's name is being made available in trade circles this summer.

If the Red Wings found a team to take Tarasenko's contract off their hands, it would free up even more salary cap space for Yzerman to work with over the summer to make additional improvements to the roster.

The Red Wings have been linked to players like Mitch Marner and Aaron Ekblad in free agency, and the cost to pick either one of them up up won't be inexpensive.