My favorite Red Wings player is... still a Red Wing, but Brendan Smith got traded today and it makes me kind of sad because Brendan Smith was the most-polarizing defenseman on a crappy blueline and it was honestly fun watching Wings fans simultaneously argue that he is dumb-as-rocks and not worth a bag of pucks and that he’s actually a really good defenseman.
The breakout D-man who should have grown into the top-pairing guy in the wake of Nick Lidstrom’s retirement, Brendan Smith never met his potential. I personally questioned whether this was a feature of the Wing’s development system failing offensive-minded D-men just last year.