Of note from Detroit Hockey Now this morning:
- You might raise your eyebrow at this note from Max Smith regarding the Red Wings and Tigers owner’s decision-making process as the CEO of both franchises:
Both [Steve] Yzerman and former Tigers GM Al Avila were given seven years to turn their respective franchises around.
Both were “legacy” managers known from their time spent working closely with the elder Ilitch. And both also ultimately failed to achieve the goal of bringing their team out of a rebuild phase.
However, in that parallel there should also be a glimmer for hope. Some of Al Avila’s draft picks (not all, but a couple, mind you) are major contributors to what is now a contending team. Led by an exciting rookie season from breakout star Kevin McGonigle, the Tigers are looking to get back into the playoffs this year even with their struggles on the mound.
The key for the Tigers was turning the keys over to a young, outside mind in Scott Harris who modernized the Tigers front office and as President of Baseball Operations, got them back into the playoffs after a decade long drought. Sound familiar?
I’m just not as sold as some of you are on the concept that an analytically-oriented GM is all that the Red Wings need to turn the franchise around.
I’m of the mind that Steve Yzerman backed himself into a corner because his circle of advisors was too small, and became something of an echo chamber.
Whatever happened, be it the Larkin situation serving as a breaking point for GM or ownership (or both), or frustration about the team’s inability to get over the hump and return to playoff status, something snapped, and as far as I’m concerned, Yzerman was serving at the pleasure of the Ilitches, and that period of time came to an end last Wednesday.
2. Smith also discusses what needs to be done by the next managerial regime to “right” the Red Wings’ ship.
Smith argues that the failures of the Red Wings’ pro scouting department may have yielded the downfall of Yzerman’s plan to rebuild the Red Wings with both top draft picks and veteran players to insulate their younger players as they grew into NHL stars:
In the immediate aftermath of Yzerman’s tenure, his ability, or rather inability, to attract the right proven NHL players to Hockeytown looks to be the biggest culprit for his downfall as GM of the Red Wings. It’s hard to say who Yzerman’s best free agent signing was, for a variety of reasons.
Patrick Kane, who’s probably leavng. That’s easy.
Many of the successful ones were traded away for peanuts or let go for nothing in free agency. We’ve all gone over the Jake Walman saga. The team never should have had to attach a pick to move off him, yet they did and he went on to have a career season. Shayne Gostisbehere and David Perron both left in free agency in 2024, and the team didn’t find viable replacements.
As far as I’m concerned, losing Gostisbehere after the 2023-2024 season handicapped the Red Wings’ defense because they never replaced his puck-moving abilities, and Detroit’s transition game suffered as a result.
While the Red Wings have some very interesting options in their young talent like Lucas Raymond, Mo Seider and Simon Edvinsson, the team surrounded them with players like Jeff Petry, JT Compher, and Mason Appleton and expected progression from the general team.
If the Red Wings want to get better, they’re going to have to either further leverage their prospect pool to get help now, or they’ll need to start planning around a window for Raymond, Seider, and Edvinsson’s next contracts.
That’s both a correct and obvious statement. The Red Wings need to accentuate its core of prospects with better players, and that’s going to require the next regime to trade some of those prospects to other organizations to acquire better “buffer players” to serve as mentors for their developing players.
Again, as far as I’m concerned, the belief that the Red Wings will be fine as long as they rip the rebuild down to the foundations again and take another 5 to 7 years to sort themselves out both a) fundamentally ignores that Raymond, Seider and Edvinsson are in their prime now, b) it fundamentally ignores how much the Red Wings have increased ticket prices on its fans (and now the amount of $$ it costs to watch a Red Wings game on what is essentially the Ilitch Sports Network), yielding internal pressure to deliver a better product, and c) assumes that there’s no way to take what’s worked from the “Yzerplan” in terms of players and prospects who do play well for Detroit and Grand Rapids.
This team is at several crossroads at the same time, but I believe that Yzerman left the helm in the middle of a pretty solid rebuild, perhaps and perhaps not because of Elliotte Friedman’s wise suggestion that Dylan Larkin’s trade request represented a bridge too far in terms of the game changing too much for Yzerman to bear.
If the Wings improve their pro scouting department (it hasn’t been the same since Mark Howe retired), if they draft a little better in the 2nd through 7th rounds of the NHL draft (maddeningly adhering to their “list” of players and only their “list” of players that they want to draft has yielded skipping some pretty bloody good lingering players from previous rounds), and if the plan comes together (to quote “The A-Team”)…
This team can still rebuild based upon what it’s got now in terms of players and prospects, as well as what it can do in terms of some fair to middling trades to better surround the prospect core/corps with better players.
Whatever happens with Dylan Larkin will obviously define the Wings’ summer/fall in terms of player personnel additions, but what the next GM does to “go from here” to the team’s next steps will define the legacy of an unfinished “Yzerbuild.” And now is not the time to tear it all down all over again.
