Red Wings' Steve Yzerman wants to make moves. Doing it will be tougher

Detroit — General manager Steve Yzerman is committed to improving the Red Wings this summer and ending a 10-year drought of missing the NHL playoffs.

But going about and doing so, fortifying the roster with offensive talent, isn't going to easy.

The unrestricted free-agent market is terribly thin this summer, and teams are locking up key players to long-term contracts at an accelerated rate. All of which makes the pool of available players extremely shallow.

But Yzerman was firm in his belief an alteration has to happen in regard to this Wings roster. Though the players who'll be remaining need to get better themselves.

"We need to change some things," Yzerman said during Thursday's season-ending press conference. "But we're not going to just go and get rid of everyone. There needs to be some very blunt conversations with some of our players and challenge them to do more and be better.

"But ultimately, we need to surround them with more talent, and having said that, we still need more from some of our very key players."

Most of the surgery Yzerman is expected to do on the roster likely will surround the forwards.

Yzerman specifically mentioned the need to score more goals at even strength, with the Wings likely in the market for a second-line center and a goal-scoring winger. But 20-some other teams cite those exact needs, as well, making the chance of executing a trade difficult.

Elias Pettersson (Vancouver), Vincent Trocheck (New York Rangers), Steven Stamkos (Nashville), Mason McTavish (Anaheim), and St. Louis' Robert Thomas and Jordan Kyrou are players who were allegedly available at the trade deadline and could be revisited this summer.

But the ask for any of those players likely would be steep.

"We'll certainly look at any way we can to improve our team to take that next step, so to speak," Yzerman said. "(We're) prepared to do that. We’re absolutely open to doing that."

Yzerman laid out what he will be looking for in the marketplace.

"The reality is we need to score more five-on-five, so that requires talent and scoring ability," Yzerman said. "We need to be a harder team to play against. We hear our players talk about that, and my message to them would be, ‘Guys, we need our team to be harder to play against. In order to do that, you guys got to be harder to play against. So, either that, or I got to get rid of you and bring in other guys.’

"In our bottom six, we need some production as well, and also to have some definition. Maybe a true checking line or shutdown line and then depending on what you have in your top nine, you build your fourth line a little bit around that. If you don't have enough production, then you've got to get some production on that fourth line. If you're not big enough and hard enough or whatnot, then you need that.