Dom Luszczyszyn offers The Athletic’s annual rankings of the NHL’s front offices per fan responses this morning, and the Red Wings have dropped from 21st overall to 23rd overall in the rankings:
23. Detroit Red Wings
2024 ranking: 21
“I am having trouble seeing the vision. For teams to get better you can’t just hit on your first round picks. You need some solid acquisitions from FA, trades, waiver pickups. Other than drafting, I don’t see the Wings doing well in any of those areas (DeBrincat trade aside) and I can’t help but feel we are going to be stuck in the 9-15 range for the upcoming years.”
“I see the vision, and I kinda get it, but it’s just not working. Still dealing with stopgaps like the Chiarot deal while we wait for prospects to improve. And if they don’t improve enough, then it’s more stopgaps and see if they get better next year. Meanwhile Larkin only gets older.”
Confidence in the Yzerplan continues to dwindle with each passing year as the Red Wings once again did not have the results to show for it. While there’s still some patience within the fan base after some large strides from the young core last season, it is beginning to wear thin. This season will be a massive one for understanding where this team’s ultimate ceiling lies.
To Steve Yzerman’s credit, the deals he signed for Lucas Raymond and Moritz Seider last year have aged phenomenally. The two have grown into cornerstone pieces and are priced at a bargain rate, creating some confidence for the future.
The question is whether they will line up with Dylan Larkin’s timeline as he approaches his 30s. As much as fans believe in the team’s drafting and (slow) developing, some tangible results need to start appearing soon, especially as some stopgap free agents start getting pushed out. In that regard, there’s still not a lot of confidence in Detroit’s ability to navigate that field given recent failures in the area.
The one major slight that really puts a significant damper on things was the Jake Walman trade. That the Red Wings needed to attach a second-round pick to offload his money last summer was baffling at the time and looks even worse now. He was an immediate difference-maker for the Sharks, netted a first at the deadline and looked fantastic for the Oilers. That’s a lot of needless value lost that limits confidence in future trades.
Continued (paywall); the fact that the Red Wings have yet to address their summertime needs, goaltending excluded, doesn’t help the Wings, either.
I still believe in Yzerman and the management team’s plan, but it’s definitely too slow right now.
In defense of Yzerman and the yzerplan, and specifically on the subject of FA acquisitions, the 2025 FA market should have an asterisk next to it as an anomaly of more normal FA markets, most probably because of the rising CAP. I still feel Yzerman did well this time with Bernard-Docker, Appleton, and Van Riemsdyk. Very precise and targeted acquisitions that should manifest a positive to the team culture as well as to the total points column. Probably worth one extra win or maybe two.
I am willing to continue to hold onto my patience with the ‘yzerplan,’ but I’m beginning to lose my grip. I was one of those who complained specifically about the Walman trade. It will never make sense to me. If it’s true that it was motivated by some undisclosed ‘character’ issue, that makes it worse, not better, because a shrewd organization would’ve at least extracted some value on his way out the door. But as mentioned in the piece, Walman’s thrived elsewhere, and I’ve heard no complaints about him as a teammate. So again, it just makes no sense.