Author: George Malik

The Hockey News’s Ryan Lambert, an outspoken critic of all things Red Wings-related, offers a surprisingly circumspect column this afternoon, suggesting that the Detroit Red Wings’ next managerial regime needs to consider three important topics, including the following:

3. What’s The Timeline For Being Competitive Again, And How Competitive Is “Competitive,” Really?

This is a question lots of NHL teams have to ask themselves. While everyone would like to win the Stanley Cup, the vast majority of teams in the league aren’t especially likely to truly compete for it consistently. Some teams can make a conference final almost out of nowhere, but for most, their big prize at the end of the season is maybe getting into the second round.

The Red Wings are a team that should have higher aspirations than that, given their overall financial health (they don’t need to rely on revenue sharing to make ends meet) and their status as one of the league’s most important franchises.

But when you miss the playoffs for 10 years straight with no obvious end in sight, barring the kind of out-of-nowhere success teams like the Pittsburgh Penguins or Buffalo Sabres just had this past season, maybe the math is a little different. Will they be content building a team that reaches 96 or 98 points just to end the playoff drought, or will they take the longer view and try to build a team that can be Cup-competitive again further down the line?

In the middle of a day filled with “hypothetical” columns, Detroit Hockey Now’s Kevin Allen discusses whether Dylan Larkin’s relationship with the Red Wings can be salvaged:

All of this talk about whether Larkin’s trade request makes it impossible to stay in Detroit is misguided. We all know that whoever is named Detroit’s Director of Hockey Operations will call Larkin and see if he can change Larkin’s mind.

If the new Detroit boss doesn’t call him, then this person wasn’t the right person for the job. We are not past the point of a no-return. Not even close. America loves stories of athletes extracting themselves from things said or did to achieve sports glory. We have plenty of examples.

…

Maybe Larkin won’t change his mind. But let’s not close that door quite yet. Part of the new Director of Hockey Operations salvage operation may be to win back Larkin because he knows the Red Wings won’t get a desirable return in the trade market.

Fans may boos Larkin to start the season, but winning cures plenty of problems. If Larkin continues to score 30-plus goals per season and the Red Wings started winning, Detroit fans won’t boo him long. Fans love a good redemption story.

But here is what we do know:

First, If there was a good return for Larkin available in the three- or four-team marketplace, Yzerman would have already made a deal by now. If the Red Wings have to take futures for Larkin and lose Kane, this team is going to take another step backward. And fans will boo longer than they would boo Larkin.

Continued; I believe that Larkin is indeed out the door, but that’s my most educated guess…

The Free Press’s Helene St. James wonders whether Red Wings coach Todd McLellan’s job is safe given that Steve Yzerman’s stepping down as the Red Wings’ GM:

McLellan, 58, has coached the Wings since Yzerman brought him in to replace Derek Lalonde on Dec. 26, 2024. The Wings were in such a poor state, “the spirit was zapped out,” Yzerman said.

Under McLellan, the Wings went on to win seven of their next eight games and strung together another seven-game winning streak again in late January-early February. Ultimately in 48 games under McLellan, the Wings went 26-18-4, with 56 points.

There were greater expectations going into last season, his first full one as coach. The Wings looked in great shape at the Christmas break at 22-13-3, leading the Atlantic Division and tied with the Carolina Hurricanes atop the Eastern Conference. A month later the Wings were 32-16-5, still leading the Atlantic, still tied for first in the conference. Even going into the Olympic break on Feb. 4, they were third in the Atlantic.

Sportsnet’s Luke Fox makes an…unusual argument…while discussing the most notable unsigned restricted free agents remaining on the marketplace, suggesting that the Red Wings may lose restricted free agent Simon Edvinsson’s services due to their front office turmoil:

Simon Edvinsson

Age: 23
Position: Defence
2025-26 salary cap hit: $894,167
Arbitration rights: No

Bargaining chips: Top-pair defenceman on one of the NHL’s best duos. Wonderful complement to franchise stud Moritz Seider. Sixth-overall pick. World juniors and world championships medallist. 

The latest: Early in the season, when the Detroit Red Wings explored a potential trade for Quinn Hughes out of Vancouver, the Canucks’ asked for a package that included Edvinsson in return, according to Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman.

That former Wings GM Steve Yzerman said no should tell you all you need to know about how highly the organization thinks of the big Swede. Logging 22-plus minutes a night while contributing at both ends of the ice, tilting it against matchups against the league’s top forward lines, Edvinsson has positioned himself worthy of a max-term, life-changing contract extension.  Think LaCombe in Anaheim (eight years, $78 million) or Luke Hughes in New Jersey (seven years, $63 million).

When the season ended, Edvinsson said “of course” he’d sign a long-term pact.

Detroit Hockey Now’s Max Smith believes that Axel Sandin Pelllikka will play most of next season in Grand Rapids, and Smith suggests that ASP and fellow Swede Anton Johansson should be the powerhouses of the Griffins’ defensive corps:

There are certainly a couple of things about the two Swedish defenseman that helps to set them apart, starting with the broad strokes of the fact that Johansson, 6’4″ towers above Sandin-Pellikka, who is generously listed at 6’0″ by the NHL. The two also have disparate playstyles, with Sandin-Pellikka known more for his ability with the puck on his stick than Johansson is.

That sort of offensive creativity and ability to keep the puck away from opponents once he got possession of it was what got the then 20 year old rookie on the Red Wings opening night roster over a more experienced veteran in Erik Gustafsson. In 68 games with Detroit’s main club, Sandin-Pellikka had 21 points while adjusting to the smaller North American ice for the first time before seemingly diminishing returns saw him assigned to Grand Rapids.

However, that doesn’t mean Johansson is a deer in the headlights when he gets the puck. In his final season for Leksands IF in the SHL, Johansson had 17 points in 42 games and tacked another six points on in eight AHL regular season games after his season in Europe finished. He had another goal during the Griffins eight game playoff run and lead the team with 19 shots through the first six games.

Johansson is definitely more known for the presence he brings on the defensive end, though. He’s known for big hits, and getting on opponents nerves, as another Red Wings prospect can well attest to. The big bodied blueliner had nearly 100 penalty minutes in the last two years in the SHL.

Continued; the Griffins have signed a fair number of good AHL defenders, so I don’t think that it’s a fait accompli that ASP and Johansson will be the Griffins’ first and second-pair superstars.

The Athletic’s Max Bultman attempts to discern why the Steve Yzerman era was not a successful one for the Red Wings’ soon-to-be-former GM, and the first category Bultman addresses is by far the most important one:

Not picking a lane

From Day 1 on the job, Yzerman preached patience. Even more than that: he was steadfast, throughout his entire tenure, in not offering a timeline. Maybe that was part of the problem.

Of course, back in 2019, it was hard to say exactly how long a process Yzerman was in for. It was always going to be a huge turnaround job, and it was fair to give him some time to get the lay of the land. But even by the end of the 2021-22 season, when he fired head coach Jeff Blashill, Yzerman was intentionally vague about where exactly the Red Wings were in their rebuilding process.

“I think we’re at the end of Year 3,” he said at the time. “And the beginning of Year 4.”

It was a good line, especially if you viewed Yzerman’s secrecy as a feature and not a bug. But in hindsight, it’s fair to wonder: was there really a grand plan there to conceal? Or was it simply patience for the sake of patience?

Another Yzerman quote from that same year-end news conference in 2022: “The danger becomes you start to get a little impatient, desperate, I’m not sure what the right word is, and then you do something stupid. … Any time I’ve tried to force something — force a trade, force a signing — I’ve kind of regretted it for different reasons. I think you just have to remain patient. Quite frankly, I think it’ll be easier for me to be patient than it will for yourself.”

There’s certainly truth in that sentiment. But the timing of it is interesting, because that 2022 offseason has become a flashpoint in autopsies of Yzerman’s tenure, with some actually viewing it as an example of the general manager getting impatient and pulling out of the rebuild too soon.

Continued (paywall); as Bultman says here–one of the few people to say it–hindsight is pretty easy right now; finding real answers as to what the “why’s” and “how’s” mean is much more difficult.

Detroit Hockey Now’s Bob Duff reports that one Chris Pronger has questions about the Red Wings’ rebuild (but no answers):

“What is going on in Detroit?” Pronger asked on X, the social media site once known as Twitter. “Steve Yzerman out. Where do the Red Wings go? And by the way, what’s up with the timing? They’ve already gone through the draft, already gone through free agency.”

Coupled with the trade request from captain Dylan Larkin this offseason, and the apparent departure of future Hall of Famer Patrick Kane as a UFA, things are spiraling in this self-proclaimed Hockeytown.

“We’ve got this whole Dylan Larkin scenario going on,” Pronger said. “What direction is this franchise headed? Is this team headed? Are they wiping away the last seven or eight years of the Yzerplan, as we call it? What exactly is going on in Detroit?”

It’s a fair question, and considering the uncertainty, the number of balls that are currently up in the air, it’s clearly difficult to pinpoint an answer.

Here’s another valid question to ponder. After seven years under Yzerman’s rule, how much further ahead are the Red Wings? Pronger is also pondering what you’re pondering on this matter.

Continued; here’s the Tweet, and if you don’t have some answers, other than to assign blame…Whoopdeedoo. Many Red Wings fans and analysts are asking the same questions. The fact that Chris Pronger is asking them ain’t special.

Steve Yzerman is OUT as President/GM of the Detroit Red Wings 🤯

Where do they go from here? What’s the plan? Let me know what you think 👇 pic.twitter.com/MOABwcGzst

— Chris Pronger (@chrispronger) July 15, 2026

The Detroit Red Wings already have a department of analytics, but MLive’s Ansar Khan echoes a familiar refrain that’s gaining traction in Red Wings Land this morning. Khan suggests that the Red Wings should emulate the Detroit Tigers in emphasizing analytics even more in hiring their next GM–who Khan believes should work under a president of hockey operations, like, for example, one Brendan Shanahan:

Hockey analytics aren’t as advanced as baseball analytics, but hockey seems to be changing with the times. Stats like Corsi, expected goals and zone entries are gaining in prominence.

NHL front offices are hiring analytics specialists, if not as their head of hockey operations, then at least high on the management depth chart.

It’s one of the reasons the Red Wings might go outside the organization for their next GM rather than promote one of Yzerman’s assistants, Kris Draper or Shawn Horcoff.

Successful teams like Stanley Cup champion Carolina, Colorado and Buffalo rely heavily on analytics. The Red Wings might look to one of those teams for their next GM, someone like Hurricanes assistant GM Tyler Dellow or Sabres vice president of hockey strategy and research Sam Ventura.

But you also need a good hockey mind, someone who relies on the eye test as much or more than advanced stats to evaluate talent.

That’s why the Red Wings might be inclined to combine the best of both worlds – an old-school president of hockey operations and an analytics-driven general manager.

Continued…

When you reject the “eye test,” you’re negating half of the data streams available to you. In any decision-making role, a good organization melds the good old-fashioned eye test with analytic tests to determine the best options.

This, “Gosh, if the Wings were more analytical, they’d be even better!” line is just creative thinking at this point.

Of brief Red Wings-related note after midnight on a Friday morning:

1. 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.)

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.