Red Wings Send Mitchell to Lightning, Land Milne and Stachowiak

The Grand Rapids Griffins needed bodies, and the Detroit Red Wings went out and got them. Detroit acquired forwards Michael Milne and Wojciech Stachowiak from the Tampa Bay Lightning in exchange for defenseman Ian Mitchell on March 12, with both newcomers headed directly to Grand Rapids. Mitchell will report to Tampa Bay's AHL affiliate, the Syracuse Crunch.

The timing tells the whole story. Detroit has been pulling forwards up to the NHL level at a steady clip, recalling Sheldon Dries, Dominik Shine, Eduards Tralmaks, and Austin Watson over recent days to cover for the absences of Dylan Larkin and Andrew Copp. That wave of recalls left the Griffins thin up front, and this trade was the correction. Notably, it was finalized while Detroit and Tampa Bay were actively playing each other, the two general managers agreeing to the deal mid-game during the second period.

Milne is the more proven commodity of the two incoming forwards. The 23-year-old was a third-round pick by Minnesota in 2022, selected 89th overall, and is now four years into his professional career. He made his NHL debut with the Wild on November 16, 2024 against the Dallas Stars and was traded to Tampa Bay by Minnesota on December 28, 2025. This season he split time between the Iowa Wild and Syracuse Crunch, recording five points in 15 games with Iowa before adding just one assist in 19 games with Syracuse, finishing the combined 34-game stretch at two goals and four assists. His career AHL line across 191 games reads 32 goals and 66 points, with 122 penalty minutes, the bulk of it built with Iowa.

Stachowiak is a different kind of find. The forward is in his first professional season in North America after playing in Germany since 2020, and he held his own with Syracuse: nine goals and eight assists in 38 games, adding a power-play goal and a game-winning goal along the way. He also represented Germany at the 2026 Olympics, recording one assist in two games. His 17-point debut in the AHL made his departure from Tampa Bay something of a mild surprise; as one assessment noted, he showed enough to project as a bottom-six NHL candidate.

Mitchell, who signed with Detroit as an unrestricted free agent on July 1, 2025, had a strong season for Grand Rapids before this move. In 45 games with the Griffins he posted four goals, 16 assists, 20 points, and a plus-27 rating. Over six professional seasons, his AHL career line stands at 113 points across 201 games with Grand Rapids, Providence, and Rockford, with a plus-51 rating, 12 power-play goals, and 10 game-winning goals. The 27-year-old was a second-round pick by Chicago in 2017 and logged NHL time with both the Blackhawks and Bruins before landing in Detroit. Tampa Bay gets an experienced right-shot defenseman with organizational depth value; the Griffins get two forwards who can contribute immediately at a moment when their roster depth was stretched thin.