I like and respect the New York Post’s Larry Brooks. I really do. But this set of comments from Brooks, via Paul Kukla of Abel to Yzerman, has me scratching my head:
It is obviously insane to assign disproportionate weight to a team’s season opener. But sometimes they can be symbolic.
And I just wonder after the Red Wings’ opening, 6-3 defeat to the Penguins in Detroit — 24 hours after Pittsburgh had been used as a speed bag by the Rangers while Detroit was fresh — whether GM Steve Yzerman is going to have Joel Quenneville on speed dial?
Yzerman is, of course, sacrosanct in the Motor City. But so was Willis Reed in New York, and he was fired by the Knicks as head coach. And so was Bart Starr in Green Bay, and he was fired as head coach.
The Red Wings’ sin lays on the doorstep of former GM Ken Holland and ownership that prioritized extending their playoff streak to what became a pro sports record to 25 years rather than taking a step or two back to reload for a championship run.
They talked about 25 years the way the Yankees sometimes talk about 32 straight years of above-.500 baseball.
But the Red Wings now have missed the playoffs eight straight seasons — the past five on the watch of Yzerman, who took command in 2019-20.
Everyone likes Detroit head coach Derek Lalonde. But time waits for no man, even an icon such as Yzerman. It would behoove the Red Wings to get on track early.
If not a playoffs-or-bust Detroit, which projected contender will turn to Quenneville, cleared to return for duty by the NHL in July?
Continued; I’m sure we’ll hear more of this given that the Red Wings’ next two opponents are the Rangers in New York on Monday, and then the Rangers on ESPN+/Hulu at Little Caesars Arena next Thursday…
And yes, there are some very legitimate questions as to whether Derek Lalonde will be the Red Wings’ coach by the end of the season in Detroit. He’s on an expiring contract.
But there are no reasonable, legitimate suggestions that the Red Wings’ GM-for-life is going to be fired because he’s in rebuild year 5 of what Ken Holland himself warned us might be a 10-to-12-year affair, and there is no way in hell that I’d turn to Joel Quenneville of all people to try and get the Wings out of their struggles.
