Don’t just add this one to the ‘Why the Yzerplan Failed’ article pile…It’s worth reading.

It’s getting a little tiring to read “Why the Yzerplan Failed” articles after the last couple of days’ worth of…Well, “Why the Yzerplan Failed” articles, but Daily Faceoff’s Mike Gould wrote a thoughtful, well-thought-out and easily readable discussion thereof, and it’s worth your time:

Red Wings fans have waited a long time — first with remarkable patience and restraint, but now with understandable restlessness — for the early promise of Yzerman’s tenure to be fulfilled in any meaningful way. But after years of bad bets in unrestricted free agency, ill-conceived trade acquisitions and puzzling drafting, it became clear that the situation in Detroit just wasn’t getting any better — no matter how many fans continued to hold out hope that Yzerman would eventually come out on top.

After all, Yzerman cultivated a reputation during his time as GM of the Tampa Bay Lightning as an executive with an unerring long-term vision for his team. With the Bolts, he made plenty of decisions that looked questionable at the time, like when he held onto Jonathan Drouin for more than a year after he requested a trade — only to end up flipping him for Mikhail Sergachev, who played an integral role in Tampa Bay’s 2020 and 2021 Stanley Cup championships.

Yzerman began his Red Wings managerial tenure in similar fashion, shocking most analysts by taking Moritz Seider with the No. 6 overall pick in the 2019 NHL Draft. That decision proved to be an excellent one, as Seider promptly developed into Detroit’s top defenseman — only reinforcing the notion that when Yzerman went against the grain, he always had a good reason.

But in the end, the biggest difference between Yzerman’s two GM tenures is that he didn’t inherit two lottery picks in Detroit. Under his purview, the Red Wings simply weren’t bad enough for long enough, and they never had any lottery luck. Conversely, when he took over as GM of the Lightning in 2010, his predecessors had already drafted Victor Hedman and Steven Stamkos. Yzerman certainly played a huge role in building that Lightning team into a contender, but he also had a big head start.

Under Yzerman, the Red Wings finished last in the league in 2019-20, and while they fell to the No. 4 draft pick via the lottery, they still drafted Lucas Raymond, who would certainly go ahead of Alexis Lafrenière and Quinton Byfield in a re-draft. The following year, they snagged Simon Edvinsson at No. 6, and in 2022, they selected Marco Kasper at No. 8.

Seider, Raymond, Edvinsson, and Kasper — four good young players. But were they enough to make a contender out of a group that previously featured Dylan Larkin and very little else? Not even close, particularly considering that Larkin has always profiled more like a high-end No. 2 center than a true No. 1. But from 2022 onward, the Red Wings perpetually operated in a fashion that suggested they viewed themselves as being on the verge of returning to prominence, and with every shortcut they tried to take, they put themselves even further from their goal.

Continued