The Athletic’s Dom Luszczyszyn has posted a list compiling fans’ confidence in their respective teams’ front office personnel, based upon 18,000 reader comments, and the Red Wings came in 3rd. I’m not going to replicate Luszczyszyn’s charts, but I can share the text.
Cue Luszczyszyn’s ever-present skepticism of all things Red Wings!
Steve Yzerman can do no wrong, which to some apparently includes signing a gargoyle statue. I respect that level of trustworthiness and am always amazed at how well Detroit scores in these rankings. Wings fans love Yzerman and have the utmost faith in his vision for the future. The cache he earned building the Lightning definitely helps with that.
The Red Wings had an extremely busy offseason where it became clear that the next phase of the team’s build is upon us. It’s what makes this season a make-or-break season for the unconditional faith in the Yzerplan. At some point, a rebuild needs to take a step forward and it’s clear this is the year where Detroit takes that step. How strong that step is should be telling toward how much confidence should be placed in Detroit’s future. A big step means all the faith during the slow rebuild is rewarded. A small step though would be pretty discouraging considering the length of the rebuild process — though to Yzerman’s credit this is only his fourth season on the job.
His first draft on the job had the Red Wings selecting Moritz Seider, one of the game’s future stars on the back end, with fellow rookie stud Lucas Raymond being taken the following year. That’s a strong nucleus and explains the team’s high marks for drafting and developing. Yzerman deserves a lot of credit for that, but in order for this team to contend, they’ll need some more big hits.
Yzerman has done a strong job so far, but the hard part is what’s next.
Continued (paywall); yes, this year is a significant stress test of Steve Yzerman’s roster-building. Why do so many of the experts assume that fans think it would be easy? This partisan never did.
