Duff on Dinosaur Yzerman

Detroit Hockey Now’s Bob Duff certainly has his timing right in examining several reasons why “the game passed by” former GM Steve Yzerman this morning, especially in light of the Free Press’s Helene St. James’ report that the Wings are looking to build an analytically friendly front office.

Duff suggests that Yzerman’s legacy could still be at least a mixed bag in that he did build a strong core of prospects for Detroit…

But Duff believes that the Red Wings didn’t pursue trades aggressively, and that the team didn’t do enough to build enough of a core of young players:

The Red Wings did insert some young players. In the case of Seider, Raymond and Edvinsson, they were able to count on them to fill key roles. Still, it always seemed that they were only half-committed to a youth movement.

Yzerman stayed with the traditional Detroit philosophy of letting prospects ripen on the vine with the AHL Grand Rapids Griffins. It meant that they traded goalie Sebastian Cossa, a 2021 first-round pick, after he’d played less than a full game in the NHL.

The Wings inserted way too many mediocre journeymen into roles that could’ve been filled in house by prospects.

Meanwhile, teams like Buffalo, Ottawa, and Montreal fully embraced youth and sailed past Detroit in the standings.

I do agree with Duff that the Wings didn’t give the team’s prospects enough opportunities to make the team. Under the previous management, there was almost a glass ceiling between the Red Wings and the Grand Rapids Griffins, and that’s not how you build a team with a young core.

Duff also believes that the Wings didn’t do enough to build an analytically-based front office:

Continue reading Duff on Dinosaur Yzerman

HSJ in the morning: Red Wings utilizing an outside search firm to find analytics-based GM; Larkin still wants to be traded

The Free Press’s Helene St. James breaks the Red Wings’ radio silence this morning, discussing the team’s front office machinations:

In selecting new leadership for the Detroit Red Wings, owner Christopher Ilitch is seeking outside assistance. 

A league source told the Free Press that Ilitch has hired a search firm to help determine who should replace Steve Yzerman, who served as general manager from April 19, 2019-July 15, 2026, when it was announced he would transition to a role as a senior advisor. 

In the meantime, assistant general manager Shawn Horcoff is handling day-to-day responsibilities, though that does not extend to making trades. 

St. James also updates Dylan Larkin’s status, which remains the same…

Continue reading HSJ in the morning: Red Wings utilizing an outside search firm to find analytics-based GM; Larkin still wants to be traded

DeBrincat works hard for his money

Detroit Hockey Now’s Kevin Allen discusses Red Wings forward Alex DeBrincat this evening, arguing that the diminutive scorer is more than worth whatever it takes for the Red Wings to re-sign him this upcoming season:

[Red Wings coach Todd] McLellan likes the competitiveness, durability and shot that comes with the DeBrincat package. This is a man who can handle heavy hitting. He has played every game in each of the past five seasons. Obviously, NHL Network selectors didn’t appreciate those attributes as much as McLellan does, never mind the fact he was 19th in the league’s points race last season.

Lucas Raymond was 20th on the NHL Network list and that seems low as well. But it wouldn’t be hard to for most NHL fans to find someone in the No. 14-19 range to remove to add DeBrincat and his 26 even-strength goals from last season.

Continue reading DeBrincat works hard for his money

There’s always room for improvement

If I may be blunt, “list articles” kind of bore me. It’s very easy to write a list and post it as “news,” and, oftentimes, the lists are kind of pedestrian.

Sports Illustrated is starting up a Red Wings blog, and they’re following the “list article” script to some extent, but SI’s Jayd Serdy is offering a creative take on the “list,” discussing one item that each and every one of the Red Wings’ forwards and defenseman should strive to achieve in the upcoming season:

Lucas Raymond — Shoot More Often

Raymond has become one of Detroit’s offensive leaders, but he’s also an excellent playmaker. Sometimes he looks for the extra pass instead of trusting his shot. Adopting even more of a shoot-first mentality could push him into the league’s elite goal-scoring tier.

Emmitt Finnie — Add NHL Strength

Finnie has the skill to make plays in tight spaces, but the jump from junior to the NHL is a different challenge physically. Adding strength will help him win more puck battles, protect possession, and make his offensive creativity translate against bigger, stronger defenders.

We all know that Raymond is a fantastic finisher, but his 51-assist season this past year was only bolstered by hitting the 25-goal mark, and he could easily hit 30-35 if he shoots the puck more regularly;

Finnie had a great rookie season as a tenacious forechecker, but he didn’t win as many puck battles as he could if he had more trunk strength.

Sayd continues, and here are some of his suggestions for Detroit’s defensemen:

Continue reading There’s always room for improvement

Red Wings merit a very solid offseason ‘C-‘ from Sportsnet’s Dixon

Sportsnet’s Ryan Dixon offers “offseason grades” for the Atlantic Division’s eight teams, and he’s very fair regarding Detroit’s uncertain situation:

Detroit Red Wings

Key arrivals: Viktor Arvidsson, W; Daniil Tarasov, G; Keegan Kolesar, W

Key departures: Patrick Kane, W

Grade: C-

The Wings’ off-season was thrown into chaos when we learned captain Dylan Larkin had requested a trade. Then, just as we were wrapping our heads around how Larkin’s demand might play out, it was announced Steve Yzerman would be coming off his post as general manager and moving upstairs.

Now, with the calendar having flipped to August and the start of training camp basically six weeks away, it just feels as though Detroit is in a giant holding pattern. The GM search has yet to yield a replacement for Yzerman and, as far as we know, nothing the organization does between now and the end of the summer is going to change the way Larkin sees his NHL future.

Add to that the fact burgeoning defenceman Simon Edvinsson needs a new contract and that sniper Alex DeBrincat is entering the final year of his deal, and there’s just uncertainty everywhere you look in the Motor City.

Maybe a new GM will land on the scene and deftly move to address all the issues. But it sure feels like — with the team now 10 years removed from its most recent playoff appearance — momentum is moving the wrong way in Detroit. 

Continued…It’s a fair grade…for now…

Tweet of note: Red Wings single-game tickets are on sale today

The Detroit Red Wings are selling tickets to their 2026-2027 season games today:

One word describing Detroit’s offseason tension

Bleacher Report’s Sara Civian offers a “one word” answer for each and every one of the NHL’s 32 teams’ offseasons, and she’s not optimistic about Detroit’s moves thus far:

Detroit Red Wings: Welp

It’s been radio silence from the Red Wings since three weeks ago, when they announced a leadership change that took Steve Yzerman out of the GM position. The position remains vacant, but there are several big questions the next guy will have to answer ASAP.

The biggest: How will the Dylan Larkin saga end, and how can the Red Wings start to replace their first-line center and captain if he still wants out?

Continued; the “Radio Silence” doesn’t help at all, but we’re all in waiting mode, and the closer we get to training camp, the worse our worry will become…

But patience is necessary right now.

Duff ponders ‘what could be’ if Henrik Zetterberg could become Detroit’s GM

Detroit Hockey Now’s Bob Duff ponders “what could be” if former Red Wing Henrik Zetterberg were to move from Sweden to the U.S. Zetterberg currently serves as an advisor to his hometown team, Timra:

Henrik Zetterberg has made it abundantly clear that he has no desire to work in the front office of the Detroit Red Wings. The funny thing is that right about now, the last Red Wings captain to lead the team into the Stanley Cup playoffs is sure sounding like a Detroit GM.

“When you lose a player who scores 30 goals, it doesn’t happen that often,” Zetterberg recently told Swedish website Hockey Sverige. “We’ll have to spread his 30 out over five or six other players instead.”

Zetterberg could easily be talking about the impending departure of his replacement, Detroit captain Dylan Larkin. The perennial 30-goal scorer is requesting that the Red Wings trade him.

He’s not, though. Zetterberg is speaking in his current role as part of the sports council at Timra, the Swedish club he played for before coming to the Red Wings.

Timra will be without 30-goal scorer Jonathan Dahlen next season. They’ve also lost Emil Pettersson, the club’s second-leading scorer from 2025-26.

Much like the Wings, who’ve seen Patrick Kane depart and may very well also be losing Larkin, Zetterberg and Timra are wondering where the goals will come from this season.

Continued

Will the Red Wings find themselves stuck in the NHL’s ‘mushy middle?’

The Athletic’s Harman Dayal discusses teams which could find themselves in the NHL’s “mushy middle” this morning, noting that the Red Wings could struggle to be a not-good-but-not-bad team if the next GM/president of hockey operations falters:

Detroit Red Wings

The Red Wings have missed the playoffs by slim margins three years in a row with 91, 86 and 92 points respectively, which is a perfect snapshot of the mushy middle. There isn’t a realistic path for them to explode past that ceiling anytime soon, especially with captain Dylan Larkin’s trade request.

Detroit is too weak down the middle, five-on-five scoring still looks like a major issue and they’re stuck in an absolutely stacked Atlantic. And because they’ve flirted with the playoffs over the last few years, they haven’t drafted high enough to land another elite star to their core. If anything, in the event the Red Wings trade Larkin, they may be too bad next season to even be considered mediocre.

Committing to a step back in the short term is probably the wisest decision for the franchise’s long-term health, though. Detroit doesn’t need a full-scale teardown as it has some foundational pieces in Moritz Seider, Lucas Raymond and Simon Edvinsson, along with a top-10 prospect pool in the NHL, but the worst possible scenario would be to trade Larkin for a win-now package in an attempt to stay competitive and end their postseason drought.

In any case, it feels like a while before the Red Wings will be relevant again. For the sake of their fans, hopefully their next GM accepts this fate, is OK with taking a step back and commits to a path that at least creates some light at the end of the tunnel.

Continued (paywall); I am still optimistic that the Wings can win this season under coach McLellan’s stewardship, but Detroit may very well take a “rest for a minute” approach to this upcoming season, should their prospects not deliver.

A bit of praise for Lucas Raymond

Detroit Hockey Now’s Max Smith discusses Lucas Raymond’s status as a dominant player over the course of his still-young NHL career, even though Smith sees Raymond’s 50+-assist season as something of a “mixed bag”:

In his age 23 season last year Raymond largely continued on the path that he had set up for himself through the previous four years in the league. After reaching 80 points in the 2024-25 season, the first Red Wing to do so since Henrik Zetterberg, expectations were high for Raymond.

While he performed at close to the same level as he had the previous year, his numbers did dip down to 76 points. He had two fewer goals and two fewer assists than the year before, and he still hasn’t scored 30+ goals since the 2023-24 campaign.

No. 23 also found himself missing a pair of games due to an upper body injury early in the season. That injury seemed to have an effect on Raymond even in the later months of the year, frustrating fans and coach Todd McLellan at times as he seemed gun shy with the puck on his stick.

However, while Raymond’s actual offensive output dropped, his underlying numbers stayed at a solid level. Raymond’s shooting percentage by the end of the season sat at 14.5%, better than the Red Wings’ leading scorer, Alex DeBrincat’s, at 14.2%. Though, Raymond’s xGF% and GF% sit below DeBrincat’s, at 48.81% and 49.49% respectively according to Statpede.

Continued; we all know that Raymond needs to shoot the puck more regularly this upcoming season, but last year, Raymond established himself as an elite playmaker, too.