Report: Red Wings and Filip Zadina agree to contract termination, forward to become UFA

The Detroit Red Wings and forward Filip Zadina are headed for a breakup.

On Thursday morning, Daily Faceoff’s Frank Seravalli reported that the Red Wings and Zadina have agreed on a solution to end Zadina’s time in Motor City: Mutual contract termination.

As Seravalli states, Zadina had $4.56 million remaining on his deal which he will now give up in hopes of finding success with a new NHL organization. Red Wings GM Steve Yzerman signed Zadina to a three-year contract just last summer.

“Unfortunately for Filip last year, he missed a lot of time due to injury,” Yzerman said earlier this week. “I thought in the 30-ish games he played, I saw growth in his game. Prior to the Draft, through his agent, he had asked if he could potentially go somewhere else and look for a better opportunity and fresh start. So, I’ve tried to do that and tried to find a place for him to play, someone interested in Filip who would maybe give him that opportunity. I’ve not been able to do that, so we put him on waivers today to try and give him an opportunity to go to an organization to play more, we’ll see what happens.

“I’m not writing off his career by any means, I think that he made significant steps. It’s been a challenge and he’s had some injuries playing in Detroit, but I think he has upside and can still be a valuable player in the NHL. He was held back last year due to injury; it happens.”

Zadina’s current contract carries an annual average value of $1.825 million, but is backloaded in terms of the actual amount of money Zadina will earn year-by-year. Zadina was paid $915,000 this past season and was slated to earn $1.83 million next season and $2.73 million in the 2024-25 season.

The fact Zadina is willing to walk away from this money in hopes of earning his keep in the NHL elsewhere is nothing short of admirable, and it will be interesting to see where he ends up.

After the Red Wings made it clear to teams that they wouldn’t be attaching an asset to move Zadina in a trade, the club put him on waivers, to which there were no takers. The cash value of his contract almost certainly drove teams away, but now, Zadina will become an unrestricted free agent and be free to sign with any club of his choosing.

Now, you may be asking yourself why this news is landing on a Canucks website, and beyond the idea that the Canucks might be interested in adding the 6-foot forward for dirt cheap, the Red Wings infamously selected Zadina one spot ahead of Canucks franchise defenceman Quinn Hughes in the 2018 NHL Entry Draft, a saga we chronicled earlier this week.

Then-GM Ken Holland left Hughes on the board for the Canucks to select at seventh overall, and the rest is history.

Zadina has tallied 28 goals and 40 assists through the first 190 games of his NHL career.