Wings trade Jakub Kindl to Florida for 6th Round Pick

The Detroit Rid Wings have completed a trade with the Florida Panthers, sending defenceman Jakub Kindl to the sunshine state in exchange for a sixth-round draft pick. The Red Wings will also retain salary on the trade.

Kindl ends his time in Detroit with 68 points in 273 games played over the past seven seasons. While the 2005 first-round pick didn’t pan out to be the player that many hoped for, he still had a relatively lengthy tenure; as the 19th overall pick, he’s played the 18th most games of anybody in the first round.

Ultimately, he didn’t fit into Detroit’s plans. As we talked about when the rumour mill began to spiral this morning, though, he’s a perfect fit for Florida. Kindl is just a single cog in their transaction machine today; the Panthers have also traded for Teddy Purcell, Jiri Hudler, and signed prospect Dryden Hunt this afternoon. Speculation persists that the team still has as many as three more moves in the works; not shocking for a division leading team with practically infinite deadline cap space.

With next year in mind, the Panthers insisted on some retained salary; Detroit will pay Kindl $360,000 this year and next. It would have been preferential to have him completely off the books, but at the end of the day it still saves them $1.09 to $2.04 million, depending on whether or what league the Wings would place him in. This might give them room to make a move this weekend, but more likely was done with the future in mind.

As for the draft pick, a sixth-round pick isn’t exactly the jackpot, but at the same time, it can become huge value if used properly. This is a team, after all, that once used a sixth-rounder to pick Pavel Datsyuk.