Rumor: Red Wings may target defenseman at the draft after dropping to #4.

The Detroit Red Wings took a pretty big hit at the National Hockey League's Draft Lottery on Friday when they went from the favorite to acquire the first overall pick, a pick that would have been used to draft future NHL star Alexis Lafreniere, but fell all the way to fourth as a result of some bad luck in the lottery. It was a rough moment for a franchise that was coming off arguably the worst season in the organizations history, but to his credit general manager Steve Yzerman handled the entire thing with nothing but class. 

Yzerman and his staff must now move on and focus on the pick that they do have, one that will likely prove to be extremely important to a rebuilding franchise like the Red Wings. Although I expect the Red Wings scouting staff to have done their due diligence on all of the prospects on this year's draft I would suspect that the Red Wings had previously been focused in on players like the aforementioned Lafreniere, Quinton Byfield, and Tim Stuetzle, as those players are expected to be the top 3 in this year's class. In his most recent article however Detroit Red Wings insider Ansar Khan revealed who he believes the Red Wings will pick at #4 after falling in the lottery, and it is not a forward at all. 

Khan believes that the team would be best served by drafting a young defenseman, pointing to the fact that the Red Wings have few high level prospects on defense in their pipeline. More specifically Khan points to defenseman Jamie Drysdale as a candidate to fill that spot, an 18 year old defenseman currently playing in the Ontario Hockey League as a member of the Erie Otters. Drysdale would be a few years away from making an impact in the NH, but that would fit well with the Red Wings surprise pick in 2019, German defenseman Mortiz Seider. The two men would join young defenseman Filip Hronek, who has already started to make an impact for the Red Wings at the NHL level, and could form a core part of the Wings blue line for years to come.

Keep in mind we saw the Red Wings pull of a surprise in 2019, one that so far appears to be paying off, so it is possible that we could also see a similar situation in 2020.