4 Reasons Yzerplan Failed for Red Wings – Hockey Writers –

It was announced Wednesday that Detroit Red Wings legend Steve Yzerman will take on an advisory role in the organization, stepping down as General Manager and President of the team as soon as a replacement is named.

The “Yzerplan” era of Red Wings hockey will be remembered as a disappointment, with tons of unfulfilled promises and missed opportunities. But why?

Taking a blank-slate team like the 2019-20 Red Wings and adding a GM fresh off leading the Tampa Bay Lightning to the President’s Championship (and building the bones of their Stanley Cup contending teams) should have been a recipe for success, especially given the nostalgia associated with Yzerman as one of the greatest players in all-time greats.

Let’s look at the four main reasons why the “Yzerplan” failed.

Set Failure

The Red Wings team that Yzerman took over was in shambles. The on-ice product was poor and the locker room looked surprisingly empty considering they had not made the playoffs for three full seasons before Yzerman’s return.

Here’s a list of the five most recent first-round picks Detroit made prior to his tenure:

6th Overall: Filip Zadina (2018 Draft)
30th Overall: Joe Veleno (2018 Draft)
9th Overall: Michael Rasmussen (2017 Draft)
20th overall: Dennis Clowski (2016 Draft)
19th Overall: Evgeni Svechnikov (2015 Draft)

That team has played a total of 1,077 regular season games for the Red Wings, almost half of that coming from one player still on the team, Michael Rasmussen. This wasn’t a matter of the team’s future trading current talent and draining the pipeline, the team had just made a number of poor draft decisions.

Detroit also had no heir apparent in net with 34-year-old Jimmy Howard playing 55 games for the 2018-19 Red Wings and 30-year-old Jonathan Bernier playing 35. There was no direction, no top prospects, and very little talent on the roster.

Patience is Running Out

From the beginning, Yzerman was wise to preach patiently to the fans and, perhaps, the team’s ownership group. Rebuilding is a dynamic in professional sports with many different paths to success. However, one sure way to fail when rebuilding is to rush things and get out of desperation.

Yzerman was determined to do things the right way, with incremental progress through the draft and free agency to build the next great Red Wings team. In his first three drafts as general manager, Yzerman made four first-round picks and six second-round picks. That was a reasonable approach to take as a team with very little in the pipeline.

However, the growth the team was hoping for hasn’t happened fast enough, especially considering their Atlantic division rivals have leapfrogged them. The Montreal Canadiens look like a formidable opponent in the next 5+ years with young stars like Lane Hutson and Cole Caufield helping to lead the offense, despite having gone through a rebuild more recently than Detroit.

The constant talk of patience started to sound like desperation from Yzerman, who asked many fans who just want to cheer on the exciting team. The fans were incredibly patient, but the news of captain Dylan Larkin wanting to leave Detroit after so many years was the last straw.

Inefficient Cap Management

Much of Yzerman’s tenure in Detroit’s front office took place during the “Flat Cap Era”, where due to pandemic-related reasons the NHL saw very little growth over a five-year period. Teams sign contracts as speculation, and that involves raising the salary cap. While the title stands, many teams are left with plenty of talent and money to pay them.

As a bad team with a lot of cap space, the Red Wings are uniquely positioned to take idle dollars for undrafted cash or scout a talented player for free at a discounted rate. So what does Detroit do? They gave about $11M a year to Andrew Copp and JT Compher. And how about $4.75M a year for Ben Chiarot.

The same management team that has always beaten the drum for a slow rebuild, the patient quickly spent more than $15M of its salary cap on ineffective deals among roster contributors. They seem to be struggling to find depth players on cheap deals (except for young guys on entry-level contracts), with guys like Rasmussen, Justin Holl, and Jeff Petry being overpaid based on their roles as bottom of the roster players.

Yzerman should get credit for his handling of long-term contracts that have already worked out for guys like Larkin, Moritz Seider, and Lucas Raymond, though his “wait and sweat it” strategy with restricted free agents (RFAs) may be outdated in a post-Leo Carlsson world.

In the end, Detroit didn’t really use their cap space to increase trade value, collect more assets, or add valuable talent in any meaningful way.

Lack of Success of the Background Framework

A huge surplus for many teams to get the steals of later in the draft. A third round pick by itself isn’t that important, but adding a player like Brayden Point late in the draft is a game changer. Adding a player like Anthony Cirelli the following year, and in the third round is the kind of mid-to-late steal that helps create a true Stanley Cup contender.

Yzerman was the Lightning’s GM in both of those picks, and Red Wings fans thought that maybe his savvy, or the personnel he picked, would be able to dig up some incredible value out of Detroit’s first round pick. It wasn’t like that.

The only players selected outside of the first round during Yzerman’s tenure who played a regular NHL role last season were Albert Johansson and Emmitt Finnie. Finnie’s rise last season was a big story as he represented the first draft pick of the season to excel in their draft picks. Johansson is a good player but is likely the third long-term defenseman paired in the second round. Finnie was a seventh-round pick in the 2023 Draft and looks like he’ll be a solid middle-six player for a long time.

Finnie is good, but he’s not a game changer for Detroit and their lack of success in drafting and developing talent was painfully evident with guys like Dmitri Buchelnikov, Andrew Gibson, Sebastian Cossa, Elmer Söderblom, and Amadeus Lombardi all being traded before they became everyday players for the Red Wings.

I’m not saying Yzerman had to draft the next Point in the later rounds of every draft, but even getting everyday contributors throughout his time in Detroit would have freed up the team to spend money elsewhere and build a better team from the ground up.

So. . . What is the Program?

There are many unanswered questions surrounding the Red Wings as we enter the true dead end of the NHL offseason. What will happen to Simon Edvinsson who is an undrafted RFA awaiting a new deal in a changing salary situation? Who will be managing the Red Wings on opening night this fall? What will the team do about their captain who left his team and was rejected by the fans?

Whoever takes over the GM role in Detroit is set for a big challenge, though I’d argue they’ll be in a better position than Yzerman was when he started. Today’s Red Wings already have a star defenseman in Seider, a great goaltender in Alex DeBrincat, a big offseason chip in Larkin, and a ton of talented U23 players to build around.

This hasn’t been the best decade in Hockey City, but I, myself, think the dark days are numbered, and that the bones of the team Steve Yzerman built will be the foundation of the next great Red Wings team.