Of brief Red Wings-related note after midnight on a Friday morning:
- The Vancouver Province’s Patrick Johnston chose to spend some time second-guessing the Red Wings’ asset management…
It was supposed to be a new dawn for the Wings. They brought back a great face from the great old days, someone who had built up an excellent reputation as a manager in Tampa Bay. But it wasn’t. The Red Wings kept treading water at best. From time to time there were glimmers of hope, but never any consistency, and it falls on Yzerman and his failed “Yzer-plan,” as fans liked to call it.
Yzerman did start on the back foot, as three of the four first-round picks made by Holland and his staff in the years before Yzerman taking over proved to be duds at best, and absolute busts at worst: Evgeny Svechnikov, Dennis Cholowski, and crucially Filip Zadina. (The Red Wings eschewed Quinn Hughes, leaving him to the Canucks to draft one pick later.)
All played in the NHL, but have struggled to make much impact. Yzerman’s drafting in his first three years yielded quality in the first round — Mo Seider, Lucas Raymond and Simon Edvinsson.
But there has not been much since in the first round. And even worse, nothing outside of the first round. His two 2023 first rounders, Nate Danielson and Axel Sandin-Pellikka have both played in the NHL and could prove to be quality players, but neither are looming stars.
“They hopped on so many landmines,” said Elite Prospects’ J.D. Burke. The Red Wings have accrued a pile of picks under Yzerman, but missed far too often. “You look at the Danielson, (Marco) Kasper and Michael Brandsegg-Nygård picks and you can maybe justify each of them in a vacuum, but not for a team that needs franchise players,” Burke added. “Even in a world where they hit on all those of those three picks, none of them has franchise player upside, so it wouldn’t really do anything for a team like Detroit.”
On top of that, when they did deliver on a good young player, such as Filip Hronek, they traded them away.
It’s no wonder, in the end, former captain Dylan Larkin wanted out. The team just spun its wheels, never truly accepting that they needed to land near the bottom of the league for another season or two in order to find a true star in the making. Instead, Yzerman signed quality middling players, like J.T. Compher, Andrew Copp and Ben Chiarot. He traded a first-round pick for Alex DeBrincat — a great player, but the Red Wings weren’t close enough to being the team that Yzerman wanted it to be.
There’s little reason to spend more time at the bottom of the league given that the team does have a solid foundation, even if they need to import a star or two. Stripping the rebuild down to its foundations again means another half to full decade’s worth of suffering.
2. Also looking backward, the Hockey News’s Jake Tye “grades the ‘Yzerplan’s‘” best and worst moves…And I think that Tye misses the point…
Worst: Trading Sebastian Cossa for J.P. Hurlbert
It’s still too early to fully judge the long-term impact of a trade made less than a month ago, but the optics are far from favorable. Despite Detroit’s deep goaltending pipeline, Cossa looked like the franchise’s presumptive goaltender of the future.
Instead of using him to bring back immediate help, Yzerman moved him to the Utah Mammoth for the 23rd overall pick, a selection lower than where Cossa himself was drafted, along with prospect J.P. Hurlbert.
If Hurlbert fails to develop into a full-time NHL contributor and Cossa emerges as Utah’s franchise goaltender, this deal could end up looking like one of the final missteps of Yzerman’s Detroit tenure.
Neither scenario is guaranteed as of 1:11 AM on July 17th, 2026…
3. Looking forward, part 1: the Hockey News’s Adam Proteau examined 5 potential replacements for Yzerman at the Red Wings’ helm…
- Brendan Shanahan: How viable would it be for Shanahan – one of Yzerman’s friends – to come in as the next GM?
We think there’s a very ideal fit for Shanahan in Detroit.
Shanahan’s legendary impact on the Red Wings as a player would earn him the respect of the Wings’ dressing room, and his decade as the head honcho with the Maple Leafs would give him the experience Ilitch could be looking for.
Shanahan has kept an extremely low profile since parting with the Maple Leafs in 2025. But he was a terrific NHL player, and he’s got the accomplishments to wait for the perfect job opportunity to arise. That very well could come with the Wings.
The Red Wings need a charismatic force to set a new tone for the organization. If he were given the reins, Shanahan might be able to deliver the Wings back to the point in time when they were the gold standard for NHL teams.
Shanahan should get another chance to implement his plan and get further in the playoffs than he did in Toronto, and it makes a lot of sense for that opportunity to come in Detroit.
4. Also looking forward, the Detroit News’s Ted Kulfan examines the Red Wings’ 2026-2027 regular season schedule:
Red Wings face another tough March
The Wings have seen their playoff hopes disappear because of terrible months of March the last three seasons.
It’s impossible in mid-July to know how teams will look in March — injuries, trade-deadline deals, natural progression or regression all are factors — but on paper, it could be another challenging month.
The Wings are home against playoff teams such as Dallas, Buffalo, Montreal and Ottawa, while also hosting likely improved teams such as New Jersey, Washington and Columbus.
The Wings visit Toronto, Winnipeg, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Washington, the New York Islanders and Montreal.
There don’t appear to be a lot of breathers, at all, in that lineup.
5. The Erie Otters officially inked Red Wings 2026 draft pick Luka Arkko to an OHL contract on Thursday:
Erie, Pennsylvania — The Otters forward core just got a little bit bigger as they’ve inked the first of their two selections from the 2026 CHL Import Draft.
General Manager Dave Brown and Director of Hockey Operations Scott Grieve announced today that the #65 overall pick in the 2026 CHL Import Draft Luka Arkko has been signed to an OHL Scholarship and Development Agreement.
Arkko comes to the Otters with both professional and junior experience in his home country of Finland and was selected by the Detroit Red Wings in the sixth round, #175 overall in the 2026 NHL Entry Draft, making him the second Otter alongside Lucas Ambrosio to represent an NHL organization heading into the 2026-27 season.
The native of Lahti, Finland spent last season split between the Pelicans U18 and U20 program, the bulk of his time coming with the latter. In a combined 46 games between the two programs, Arkko collected 33 points (17G+16A).
The 6’3 2008-born forward also spent time with the Finnish National Team, where with their U18 program in 14 games he picked up 11 points (6G+5A).
6. And finally, graduating Red Wings prospect Dylan James was named an NCHC Distinguished Scholar-Athlete for earning a grade point average greater than 3.5 this past season while both studying at and skating in ice hockey for the University of North Dakota.
