Apparently desperate to get out of Detroit by any means necessary, Zadina and the Wings agreed to terminate the final two seasons of his three-year, $5.475 million deal this past July. It made Zadina an immediate unrestricted free agent and he ended up inking a one-year, $1.1 million deal contract with San Jose a few days later. Zadina has never scored more than 10 goals and 24 points in any one season, but he's going to get a chance at a massive workload playing for the going-nowhere Sharks. Keep an eye on the No. 6 overall pick from 2018 throughout training camp and into the early part of the season.
Zadina finished with a career-high 10 goals and 24 points in 74 games a season ago, although a deeper dive into the numbers reveal cause for concern. Zadina finished the year with a minus-24 rating while seeing his average ice time drop by more than two and a half minutes to 14:11 per game. A third of Zadina's 24 points came with the man advantage, which is a good sign, but he will need to improve his efficiency at even strength if he hopes to come remotely close to reaching his ceiling. For now, Zadina is nothing more than a late-round dart throw in standard fantasy formats.
Zadina displayed flashes of brilliance (6 goals, 19 points in 49 games) for the Red Wings in 2020-21, but the general consensus is that he hasn't developed as quickly as hoped or expected over the course of his first three professional seasons. On the whole, Zadina has had difficulty generating offense. He averaged less than two shots on goal a game (97 in 49 games) last year and that simply isn't enough for an offensive player who saw 2:09 worth of power-play time per night. There's still hope for Zadina given the fact he won't turn 22 years of age until late November, but he's nothing more than a late-round dart throw in standard leagues at this point.
Zadina split time between the Red Wings, where he had 15 points in 28 games, and AHL Grand Rapids, where he notched 16 points in 21 contests, in 2019-20. Zadina has gotten some playing time in his native Czech Republic, but he also suffered a finger injury while out on loan. He is expected to be fully healthy when training camp opens, but injuries were a big part of last season for the top prospect. The sixth overall pick from 2018 will have a great chance of making the Opening Night roster this year, as the Red Wings are quite thin at right wing. He could challenge for a 40-point pace in 2020-21 if he can stick with the big club all season.
Zadina is a pure sniper who can score in a variety of ways. These defining traits caused him to go sixth overall to the Red Wings in the 2018 draft, with team brass spurning University of Michigan standout Quinn Hughes (Vancouver) and Adam Boqvist -- another dynamic offensive producer who was ultimately nabbed by Chicago -- in order to draft the prolific Czech forward. Zadina shredded the QMJHL circuit as a rookie with the Halifax Mooseheads in 2017-18, though he failed to make the Opening Night roster with the Wings and was humbled by a minus-17 rating and 0.59 points-per-game average through 59 games for the AHL's Griffins last season. The 19-year-old still has the maximum term on his contract due to an entry-level slide exception,and he's waiver-exempt to the benefit of the Wings, but he'll still need to turn heads in training camp to avoid another lengthy AHL stint.
Viewed by most experts as the third-best player in the 2018 draft class behind Rasmus Dahlin and Andrei Svechnikov, no one could provide a valid reason for Zadina dropping to sixth overall to Detroit. The Red Wings were over the moon to land the QMJHL's reigning rookie scoring leader (44 goals, 82 points in 57 games) and the plan is to immediately insert Zadina into a top-six role in their lineup. The scoring production should be there for the talented Czech, but fantasy owners need to keep in mind that any quality offensive numbers are likely to come with a putrid plus/minus rating given how poor Detroit is expected to be overall. Still, Zadina needs to be drafted in all leagues heading into his rookie season.
