4 Reasons the Yzerplan Failed for the Red Wings

It was announced on Wednesday that Detroit Red Wings legend Steve Yzerman would be taking 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 undelivered promises and missed opportunities. But why?

Taking a blank slate team like the 2019-20 Red Wings and adding a GM who was just coming off of leading a Tampa Bay Lightning team to the President’s Trophy (and building the bones of their back-to-back Stanley Cup championship teams) should have been a recipe for success, especially given the nostalgia attached to Yzerman as one of the greatest and most successful players in the history of a very storied franchise.

Let’s take a look at the four biggest reasons why the “Yzerplan” never came to fruition.

Set Up For Failure

The Red Wings team that Yzerman took over was abysmal. The on-ice product was awful and the prospect cupboards were shockingly bare considering they hadn’t made the playoffs for three full seasons prior to Yzerman’s return. 

Here’s a list of the five most recent first round picks Detroit had made before his tenure:

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

That group has played a combined total of just 1,077 regular season games for the Red Wings, with nearly half of that total coming from the only player to still be on the team, Michael Rasmussen. This wasn’t a case of the team trading futures for current talent and draining the pipeline, the team had just made many poor choices at the draft.

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

Patience Runs Out

From the very start, Yzerman was wise to preach patience to the fanbase and, presumably, the team’s ownership group. Rebuilds are fickle things in professional sports with many different pathways to success. However, one surefire way to fail when rebuilding is to rush things and make moves out of desperation. 

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

However, the growth that the team was counting on hasn’t materialized nearly quickly enough, especially considering their Atlantic division rivals who have leapfrogged them. The Montreal Canadiens look like a formidable foe for the next 5+ years with young stars like Lane Hutson and Cole Caufield helping lead the charge, despite having gone through a rebuild more recently than Detroit. 

Constantly talking about patience began to look a bit like desperation from Yzerman, who asked a lot of a fanbase that just wants to cheer for an exciting team. The fans were incredibly patient, but the news of captain Dylan Larkin wanting out of Detroit after so many years was clearly the final straw. 

Inefficient Cap Management

Most of Yzerman’s tenure in Detroit’s front office took place in the “Flat Cap Era”, where due to pandemic-related reasons the NHL’s salary cap saw incredibly small growth over a five year span. Teams sign contracts as projections, and that involves projecting increases to the salary cap. When the cap stagnated, many teams were left with too much talent and not enough money to pay them.

As a bad team with lots of cap space, the Red Wings were placed in a unique spot to take on inefficient cap dollars for draft capital or to pry a talented player free for a bit of a discounted rate. So what did Detroit do? They gave nearly $11M per year to Andrew Copp and JT Compher. And how about $4.75M per year to Ben Chiarot. 

The same management group that constantly beat the drum for the slow, patient rebuild quickly spent over $15M of their salary cap on inefficient deals to middle of the lineup contributors. They seemed to struggle to find depth contributors on cheap deals (outside of 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 lineup guys.

Yzerman should get some credit for his handling of some longer term contracts that already look pretty efficient with guys like Larkin, Moritz Seider, and Lucas Raymond, though his “wait it out to make them sweat” tactic with restricted free agents (RFAs) might be outdated in the post-Leo Carlsson offer sheet world. 

In the end, Detroit never truly weaponized their cap space to increase trade value, net extra assets, or add significant talent in any meaningful way.

Lack of Late Draft Success

The biggest surplus value for most teams is getting a late round steal in the draft. A third round pick itself isn’t all that valuable, but adding a player like Brayden Point that late in a draft is a game changer. Adding a player like Anthony Cirelli the following year, also in the third round is the kind of mid-to-late round steal that helps to create a true Stanley Cup contender. 

Yzerman was the GM of the Lightning for both of those picks, and Red Wings fans thought that perhaps his savvy, or the staff he chose, would be able to mine incredible value outside of the first round for Detroit. That was not the case.

The only players selected outside of the first round during Yzerman’s tenure who played regular NHL roles last season were Albert Johansson and Emmitt Finnie. Finnie’s rise last season was a massive story as he represented the first draft pick of this era to truly outperform their draft selection. Johansson is a good player but he’s likely a long-term third pairing defenseman drafted in the second round. Finnie was a seventh round pick in the 2023 Draft and looks like he will be a strong middle-six player for a long time.

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

I’m not saying that Yzerman had to draft the next Point in the late rounds of every draft, but even just 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 bottom up.

So . . . What’s the Plan?

There are so many unanswered questions surrounding the Red Wings as we enter the true dead zone of the NHL offseason. What’s going to happen with Simon Edvinsson who is an unsigned RFA awaiting a new deal in a changing salary landscape? Who will be at the helm of the Red Wings on opening night in the Fall? What is the team going to do about their captain who quit on his team and has been outright disowned by the fanbase?

Whoever takes on the GM role in Detroit is set up for a big challenge, though I’d argue they’ll be in a better place than Yzerman was in when he first began. Today’s Red Wings already have a star number one defender in Seider, an excellent goal scoring winger in Alex DeBrincat, the offseason’s biggest trade chip in Larkin, and a ton of talented U23 players to build off of. 

This hasn’t been the prettiest decade in Hockey Town, but I, for one, think that the days of darkness are numbered, and that the bones of the team built by Steve Yzerman will be the foundation of the next great Red Wings team.