Red Wings GM Steve Yzerman spoke with the media earlier this afternoon, and the Red Wings’ press corps all posted articles about said press conference.
The Detroit News’s Ted Kulfan took note of the GM’s take on the Red Wings’ likely status as playing for a playoff spot down the stretch again…
“I don’t think it’s any different than I felt last year,” Yzerman said during Thursday’s media conference. “We’re in that group of teams that has a chance to compete for the playoffs if we stay healthy and if our goaltending is good and you get some, maybe unexpected production some players outplay your expectations, you might get in. Or you might miss by a point on the last game of the season. That’s the fine line of it all.”
The Wings have missed the playoffs the last eight seasons, including the last five with Yzerman managing the Wings. Yzerman admitted to feeling some pressure to get into the playoffs, but he’s not going to change his masterplan.
“Our fanbase wants to win and we came close last year in making the playoffs,” Yzerman said. “The finish of our season was very exciting and dramatic. Maybe a little misleading in that we have to really improve like we’ve talked in some areas, we have to get deeper. We’d love to make the playoffs this year and I’m hopeful, but we’ll continue to build a strong nucleus of players that will be around here. Pressure, whatever you want to call it, will not change what I’m trying to do.”
But Yzerman did suggest that he may yet make another addition, as Detroit Hockey Now’s Kevin Allen noted…
“I would say there’s another move possible, we’d consider that,” Yzerman said. “I don’t have anything on the go at the moment. We kind of tally up the goals in, the goals out.”
If Yzerman makes another move, it could be a trade. Currently, he has just over $20 million left in cap space. He may need every dime to re-sign his restricted free agents Moritz Seider, Lucas Raymond, Jonatan Berggren and Joe Veleno.
“We have four restricted free agents today and we can estimate on a shorter-term deal and on a longer-term deal,” Yzerman said. “Set aside a certain amount of money in the budget for them and as free agency went along and we’re trying to get our own guys signed we had to tweak things a little bit, but it hasn’t changed what we think those four players are going to come in at. We will get contracts done with them, it’s just a question of when and what term we do on all of them.”
The Red Wings could use a bit more scoring. Two players Yzerman traded — Jake Walman and Robby Fabbri — combined for 30 goals. Daniel Sprong hasn’t signed and he scored 18. David Perron signed with Ottawa and also netted 17 goals. Shayne Gostisbehere, who scored 10 goals, will play with the Carolina Hurricanes next season.
MLive’s Ansar Khan noted that the Red Wings almost made another significant free agent signing, but things didn’t work out…
Yzerman said he made a pitch for one of the top free agents – the short list included Steven Stamkos and Jonathan Marchessault, both of whom signed with Nashville.
“We had some interest in one that we thought might be a fit,” Yzerman said. “We decided very quickly that it’s going to be really some major surgery to try and get it done.”
But at the present moment, the roster “is what it is”…
“We expect a little more out of Lucas Raymond, Alex DeBrincat, his shooting percentage for his career was down a little bit last year,” Yzerman said. “Jonatan Berggren we expect to contribute a little bit to that. On the back end, Erik Gustafsson will contribute to some of the offense lost with Shayne Gostisbehere and Jake Walman goals. Hopefully we can keep a few more out of the net and maybe it nets out in a positive way.”
Yzerman said Ville Husso is healthy, but they’ll see how he in training camp before deciding whether to carry three goalies on their season-opening roster.
“I’m happy with the D corps,” Yzerman said. “We’re expecting Simon to play a bigger role. Albert Johansson will get an opportunity to have an impact.”
And the goal of the so-called Yzerplan remains the same, as the Hockey News’s Connor Eargood noted:
We’re trying to build a core that’s going to be together for a number of years, and unfortunately it takes time,” Yzerman explained. “And depending on how your drafts go or who’s available in those drafts, it can expedite the process or it can be slower. And I’m going to continue to try to be patient with our draft choices, our prospects until they’re ready to go and we’ll keep building on that group, and as we’ve gotten a little bit better each season.”
…
Whether one can blame Yzerman’s past spending extravagance or just the whims of a historic market, Detroit’s free agent strategy was an audible that leaves it in a sort of playoff-border purgatory. But so long as this status doesn’t sacrifice the future, Yzerman is willing to live with it. Even if such a close playoff push might elevate expectations for his Red Wings, Yzerman isn’t ready to go all-in.
“Pressure, I guess whatever you want to call it — it’s not going to change what I’m trying to do,” Yzerman said. “It’s the right way to do it. And it’s taken some time, and I can’t tell you it’s five years, seven years, 10 years, (but) I’m just gonna stick with it here and we’ll keep going. But we would all love to win.”
The Free Press’s Helene St. James went with some “quick hits” from Yzerman’s presser…
On the Tarasenko signing: Tarasenko is a former 40-goal scorer, four-time All-Star Game participant and two-time Stanley Cup winner who projects to strengthen the top six.
“”He’s a left-shot winger, bigger body, a little bit different type of player than our wingers like Lucas Raymond, Patrick Kane, Alex DeBrincat — a bigger body,” Yzerman said. “He’ll fill out that top six, top-nine group. Scorer, straight-ahead guy, goes to the net. We feel it’s a really good addition.”
On the plethora of goaltenders: Along with Alexander, the Wings also have goalies Ville Husso, Alex Lyon, and free-agent newcomers Cam Talbot and Jack Campbell under contract for next season. Talbot, especially, was signed in view of Husso missing the last two-thirds of the season with a lower-body injury.
“We’ll see how Ville’s health is in training camp,” Yzerman said. “We expect him to be 100% ready to go. And then we’ll do what we did last year — we’ll play it by ear and figure it out as we go along.”
The Athletic’s Max Bultman broke things down by positional additions, before weighing in on the possibility of the Red Wings actually making the playoffs next spring…
Will that be enough to make the playoffs? It’s going to be a tall task, especially in the brutal Atlantic Division, and with other Eastern Conference teams such as New Jersey and Washington making meaningful improvements. Detroit finished with 91 points last season, missing out on the playoffs via a tiebreaker. But that same 91 points may not necessarily be as close to the playoffs this time around.
“Our lineup is shaped a little bit differently,” Yzerman said. “And hopefully we can build off the momentum, all of our guys, that they created throughout the season.”
Asked if he felt any more pressure, as years have gone by with no playoffs, Yzerman acknowledged, “Yeah a little bit, honestly.”
The Detroit News’s Bob Wojnowski will conclude our survey of the various comments about and reactions to Yzerman’s remarks, tying into Bultman’s column regarding the pressure the GM faces on a daily basis:
“Yeah, a little bit, honestly,” he said Thursday. “Pressure, whatever you want to call it, it’s not gonna change what I’m trying to do. It’s the right way to do it, and it’s taking some time. I can’t tell you it’s five years, seven years, 10 years, I’m just gonna stick with it. We’d all love to win, me, you, our fan base, I understand.”
As a player and an executive, Yzerman isn’t prone to panic, and there’s no reason he should. The Yzerplan (not his favorite term, by the way) is to build a strong core through drafting and development, then maintain long-term success with supplemental acquisitions. That may adjust with time, but it isn’t about to drastically change now. The Wings have a deep cache of prime young players, with more about to join Moritz Seider and Lucas Raymond on the big club.
Yzerman and his staff have drafted extremely well, despite no lottery luck. It should be especially noticeable with the next wave, youngsters such as Simon Edvinsson, Albert Johansson, Jonatan Berggren and Marco Kasper.
At the moment, the Wings don’t look appreciably different than last season. I think they’ll make the playoffs because their young players should be better, their defense should at least modestly improve, and captain Dylan Larkin is blossoming into a star. Or, who knows, it might be a Kane goal or a Talbot save that gets them in. Tarasenko, 32, a strong scoring forward from the champion Panthers, isn’t a pricey prize but could be an underrated boost.
Yzerman isn’t fooled by ephemeral progress, and the Wings’ 91-point total perhaps was a bit deceptive. They scored more goals and won more games than the analytics — puck possession, etc. — suggested they should, with a productive power play that now loses its key point man in Gostisbehere.
“The finish to our season was very exciting and dramatic, and maybe a little misleading,” Yzerman said. “We got incredibly timely goals to win some games dramatically. Maybe it won’t be as dramatic next year, and maybe that’s not a bad thing. Maybe we win some lower-scoring games and not have these wild comebacks, and also not have some of these wild losses.”
Quite honestly, a more consistent Red Wings team might be able to “squeak in” with a little less drama, and after a season which ended with me in the surgical waiting room while my aunt had a double hip transplant, watching the Red Wings win in a shootout vs. Montreal (and talking to the surgeon about the game) but losing out on a playoff spot by a tiebreaker…
A little less drama would be welcome, on and off the ice.
That, and this is really a “long rebuild”–the 7-to-10-year kind–whether we like it or not (not really, honestly).
