The Detroit News’s John Niyo weighs in regarding the Red Wings’ firing of Derek Lalonde and hiring of Todd McLellan, suggesting that Red Wings GM Steve Yzerman bears some of the blame for the state of the Red Wings:
It’s Steve Yzerman who should be feeling the heat for as long as the Wings — and their fans — are left out in the cold. Because halfway through another lost season at Little Caesars Arena, with a franchise-record postseason drought likely extending to nine years this spring, the so-called “Yzerplan” remains stuck in a rut.
Go ahead and cheer Lalonde’s exit if you want. And cross your fingers that the arrival of McLellan will light a fire under an underachieving group that sits just two points above the cellar in the Eastern Conference. That’s certainly part of Yzerman’s calculation here. But just be honest about what this was and what it really means in the larger picture.
Firing a lame-duck head coach midway through the final year of his contract is hardly an inspiring signal from a general manager in his sixth season in charge. Neither is the fact that this pink slip comes as no surprise to anyone, really, even if it is the first time the Red Wings have made an in-season head coaching change since 1986, the year before Yzerman was awarded the captain’s “C” in Detroit.
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Yzerman has preached patience since his return as GM in April 2019, promising only that he’d go about rebuilding a winner — and eventually a Cup contender — methodically. And even without any lottery luck, the Wings’ draft-and-development strategy is starting to show dividends: First-round picks Moritz Seider, Lucas Raymond and now Simon Edvinsson are blossoming in Detroit, while the prospect pipeline is promising more. (Defenseman Axel Sandin Pellikka, a 2023 first-rounder, scored a natural hat trick Thursday in Sweden’s opener at the World Junior Championship.) So for all the doom and gloom at the moment, there is still reason to be optimistic about the future.
But many of Yzerman’s other moves have left fans wanting, and wondering, while they wait. And whether it’s the odd trades (Jake Walman) or the free-agent flops (Justin Holl) or any of the other value judgments that seem to be weighing down a roster Lalonde couldn’t wring more out of this fall, the Wings’ GM certainly knows everyone’s patience is running thin here. He has to know he’ll need to make more changes beyond the bench here, too, as the NHL trade market heats up in the days and weeks ahead.
As the Wings’ GM put it last spring, “We as a management group have to make some good decisions. And we’ll be sitting here next year and say that was a good decision, or we’ll be saying, ‘Steve, what were you thinking?’ You know, that’s the reality of it.”
Continued (paywall)
