The Hockey News’s Adam Proteau has been surveying the NHL’s 32 teams for a set of “Hot Seat Radar” articles, and, as is the fashion at this time, he suggests that the Red Wings’ general manager is under pressure to produce a playoff-worthy team:
Success has been much harder to come by for him in the past five years, with the Wings missing the playoffs and finishing no higher than fifth place in their division in that span. While most of those years have been in a rebuild, they just missed out last season and could have looked to have been more competitive the year prior.
Yzerman also has made some questionable decisions in recent years. Did you know Detroit’s second-highest-paid defenseman at the moment is frequent healthy scratch Justin Holl? That will change when star blueliner and RFA Moritz Seider agrees to a contract extension, but it’s difficult to see what the Red Wings were thinking with that deal for Holl.
Similarly, Yzerman’s signing of center Andrew Copp has not panned out as hoped, with the 30-year-old center posting only 13 goals and 33 points in 79 games this past season. Given that Copp has three years left at a salary cap hit of $5.625 million, his contract is an overpayment so far.
Once again this summer, with the free-agent acquisitions of winger Vladimir Tarasenko, defenseman Erik Gustafsson and goalies Cam Talbot and Jack Campbell, Yzerman has spent money trying to augment the lineup. But there are few people who see the Red Wings as a 100-percent lock to get back into the post-season. And if Detroit does miss the playoffs this coming year, the focus will center around Yzerman’s blueprint for success. And it won’t be positive.
You can only dine out on your reputation for so long before your current stretch of success or failure overrides that reputation. That’s where Yzerman is with the Wings today. Few playoff bubble teams are dealing with more pressure than Detroit is, and the ramifications of another year of disappointment will greatly influence how much longer Yzerman has the keys to the kingdom.
Continued; Yzerman has had some hits and some big misses in the free agent marketplace, to be sure, but it would take a very dumb, impatient owner to dump the GM because the rebuild isn’t over yet.
You and I can say a lot of things about Chris Ilitch, but he isn’t dumb or impatient.
