Red Wings: A Slumping Andreas Athanasiou Won’t Benefit Anyone

As the calendar turns from 2019 to 2020 and the NHL trade deadline is weeks away rather than months, Red Wings forward Andreas Athanasiou will be a name that continues to surface in the rumor mill.

There are plenty of recognizable names that seemingly always bubble to the top of the trade rumor mill as the season wears on.  Especially when said team is in the midst of a rebuild.  It seems every single season the likes of Mike Green, Trevor Daley, Jimmy Howard, Luke Glendening all find their names in the headlines as potential trade candidates, yet in Detroit, they stay.  But under the direction of Red Wings legend Steve Yzerman, I expect things will be different in ’20? Maybe…

It’s another contract year for Andreas Athanasiou.  He will once again become a restricted free agent this summer — one big difference though this time around.  His agent won’t be dealing with the very accommodating Ken Holland.  This time, it’s the relentless Steve Yzerman calling the shots.

The Detroit Red Wings are having a terrible start to the 2019 season.  There must be nights Yzerman goes home and wonders why he ever left Tampa Bay.  His heart is without a doubt here in Detroit, but this is a complete mess.

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Jimmy Howard nor Jonathan Bernier can stop a puck.  In case you are wondering, that’s what they get paid to do.  Which other teams will want to trade for a struggling goaltender? Exactly. No one.

They aren’t the only Red Wings players struggling.  Andreas Athanasiou, a player that scored 30 goals last season in 76 games, finally scored his first goal of the season last night.  It took the speedy forward 14 games to notch goal one.  Yikes.

When you start to examine his stats, it will make you sick to your stomach.  Plus/minus isn’t nearly as important these days as it once was, but it gives you a quick indication of how well a player is playing.  Prior to last night’s game, Athanasiou was a minus -18 in just 13 games played.

Jeff Blashill continues to roll out his dynamic forward nearly 17:00 TOI minutes per game, but the results have been few and far between. Two of his five assists have come on the power-play, and they were both in the same game, both assisting Anthony Mantha.

When you start to look at the analytics, things, as you’d imagine, don’t get any better.  His Cori For Percentage, which calculates a player’s puck possession while he’s on the ice, is atrocious. You’d like all of your top players to grade above 50%, meaning they’d have the puck more than their opponents.  Athanasiou’s rolling at 43%.  He’s way too talented to grade out that poorly.

As much as I like Athanasiou, he’s the definition of a streaky scorer.  He went through two different 11 game stretches last season, where his goal-scoring production completely dried up. He’s a player Steve Yzerman would likely consider using as the centerpiece in a deal to acquire a defenseman.  But what kind of return can you get for a player posting those stats listed above?  Seriously?

At this point, teams’ will be very reluctant to give up a top-four defenseman, and the Red Wings have no need for anything less.  They are already littered with sixth defensemen.  In fact, a roster full.

A slumping Andreas Athanasiou would hurt his own wallet come summer, plus hinders the Red Wings if they had ambitions of trading him.