When does the Yzerplan start getting criticized?

[bleedgreen]

I'm surprised that after 4 years of spinning wheels with draft capital, they're not making more moves like Montreal is doing - ie. picking cheap, young, talented young players who are having troubles establishing themselves in the league and offering them a change of scenery.

Not sure if it would work, but at the pace the rebuild is going, Seider will be 26-27 by the time those picks they got for Hronek/Bertuzzi got will be impactful. Maybe they'll just be rookies as well, who knows.

By that time, Larkin is gonna turn 30, with no C in sight to play 2C behind him - or even replace him. The rest of the team is incredibly underwhelming. For the future roster to look any good, talent will need to come from the inside.

I heavily question their scouting department. Seider was a good pick, Raymond looks solid, but the rest seems scarily up in the air. They even traded UP for Cossa and Buium... Dallas got Wyatt Johnston while trading down from that pick Detroit used on Cossa.

Didn’t they just do that with Edm?

My bad, a lot(all?) of the picks under Yzerman are still too young to write off

The timing just doesnt look great. 4 years for Kasper/Danielson to become 2C and better is bringing Yzerman's tenure to 8 years (he was there since 2019 right? 5 drafts, 4 seasons to date?)

Idk, the "Yzerplan" just looks like a traditional long term rebuild to me. If theres anything special in the way he manages the team, its that he avoids the big shiny toy of the moment, doesnt disrupt the rebuild for costly immediate help.

It was always supposed to be a long term rebuild.

 

[TheMoreYouKnow]

So which is it?

Are the Wings supposed to be leading the longest tank in history until they finally hit a 1OA, or should they be in pLaYoFf CoNtEnTioN?

It's nowhere near the 'longest tank in history', it's not even a particularly long one. The Wings finished with the lowest point total exactly one season - 2019/20. Otherwise they've spent a few years in the lower group, but never actually were tanking for real.

If you rebuild, you play kids and scrubs until you get better. But you need to get better organically on the back of your kids turning into real good players, not by signing 2nd tier free agents to artificially inflate point totals.

Yzerman's talking points sound exactly like what someone would say who's pressured to put points up in the regular season by ownership who want to make money in the short run rather than build a Cup-winning team.

 

[Pavels Dog]

If you rebuild, you play kids and scrubs until you get better. But you need to get better organically on the back of your kids turning into real good players, not by signing 2nd tier free agents to artificially inflate point totals.

So Larkin, Seider and Raymond are forced to play on terrible teams until another 15 draft picks hit?

 

[Theodore450]

Yeah I wouldnt replace him if I were Detroit's owner.

But I have a suspicion that, if his draft picks pan out, the next GM will get the credit for the team's turnaround (in a few years)

Yeah I was questioning wtf they where doing and spent like and hour looking at the cap situation, the roster situation, the future draft capital and extensive prospect overview.

He’s setting up something nice in Detroit. He must be expecting at least 2 more top end draft picks then go all in with a new core. I thin you’ll see him be aggressive next offseason to add core players now that the depth of actual hockey players have a team .

 

[Matt Ress]

Yeah I was questioning wtf they where doing and spent like and hour looking at the cap situation, the roster situation, the future draft capital and extensive prospect overview.

He’s setting up something nice in Detroit. He must be expecting at least 2 more top end draft picks then go all in with a new core. I thin you’ll see him be aggressive next offseason to add core players now that the depth of actual hockey players have a team .

That's possible. And with all due respect, why sign free agents if you're playing the long game? He seems caught between selling tickets and rebuilding and he didn't have that pressure in Tampa. Detroit is more of a hockey town and they have some good pieces and want to win. If they end up stockpiling more high picks it will be seen as failure.

 

[norrisnick]

That's possible. And with all due respect, why sign free agents if you're playing the long game? He seems caught between selling tickets and rebuilding and he didn't have that pressure in Tampa. Detroit is more of a hockey town and they have some good pieces and want to win. If they end up stockpiling more high picks it will be seen as failure.

Signing free agents gives you the opportunity to sell off pieces that aren't in your plans for more draft capital. Much like you really don't want to be jammed against the cap you also don't want to be hugging the floor. Flexibility both ways.

 

[abo9]

Signing free agents gives you the opportunity to sell off pieces that aren't in your plans for more draft capital. Much like you really don't want to be jammed against the cap you also don't want to be hugging the floor. Flexibility both ways.

Also, those FAs could be solid veteran depth im a few years

Teams of exclusively young players dont tend to do that good

 

[Hockeyfan2390]

I appreciate the response but I disagee with this. I think the closest model that Yzerman is following for sustained success at the upper levells with multitple opporutnities to contend is the Boston Bruins.

They haven't had a top10 pick since Dougle Hamilton in 2011, I think. Before that they did have Seguin and Kessel as top 5 picks, but those weren't the guys that made them what they are.

Bergeron was drated 45th, Krejic was drafted 63rd, Marchand 71st. They got a superstar in in UFA with Chara.

They have maintained a disciplined cap structure, and have an elite culture largely established by the leadership of Chara. Yzerman tried to sign Chara in Detroit to help establish culture, and a recent article stated he was closer to coming here than I ever thought.

Though not the same, there are elements of this approach , in what Yzerman did in Tampa.

This admittedly a difficult approach, but then again all rebuild are in terms of success rates. What Yzerman has going fo him, his a methodic approach along with patience and disscipline to carry it out.

People look at the Compher signing and say that's not dscipline, but on the contrary, the contract going forward is not as much of an overpayment as it seems today, and will have not prevent him from doing what he needs to do in the future. JT is here for culture and leadership, and will take the load off of responsibilites for Kasper, Danielson and whoever when they (hopefully) are on the big team to stay.

When the time comes after SFY has accumulated numerous assets, has a fully developed pipeline of prospects and the right guy hits the market, Yzerman will be in a postition to strike, but that is still likely years away.

That absolutely cannot be the case. It's Year 5 - they need to start seeing some serious results this season, because you cannot build a team solely through drafting, especially when you get absolutely no lotto luck and a chance at a franchise player.

 

[Chet Manley]

That's possible. And with all due respect, why sign free agents if you're playing the long game? He seems caught between selling tickets and rebuilding and he didn't have that pressure in Tampa. Detroit is more of a hockey town and they have some good pieces and want to win. If they end up stockpiling more high picks it will be seen as failure.

Deliberately sucking for too long can engrain it into a org. You have to throw everyone a bone and at least give them a chance to win games.

 

[Stephen]

Looking at the Yzerplan and the Red Wings from the outside, things may not have gone completely to plan when they didn't get the lottery luck and high end offensive talent at the top of the draft, so they'll need to go Tampa Bay styles and find their Kucherov, Point, Palat, Cirelli, Killorn later in the draft. Not sure who these candidates might be in the system.

Stylistically, it looks like they got scooped by the Sabres who have Dahlin and Power who will probably be a more high profile pair than Seider and Edvinsson, and Ottawa, who has more top end forwards in Tkachuk and Stutzle.

Otherwise it's a methodical build, maybe just lacking the high octane punch of previous Wings eras.

 

[Matt Ress]

Signing free agents gives you the opportunity to sell off pieces that aren't in your plans for more draft capital. Much like you really don't want to be jammed against the cap you also don't want to be hugging the floor. Flexibility both ways.

Makes sense. The key is if they're the right people at the right time and contract.

 

[Matt Ress]

Deliberately sucking for too long can engrain it into a org. You have to throw everyone a bone and at least give them a chance to win games.

Nah. The people engrain a winning attitude. There's no blanket rebuild. Is Y bringing in the right people into the best scenario to create that winning culture? I'm not saying he's not but I have concerns. There is a lot of great young talent on that team. Is he hoping to stockpile high picks? Doesn't seem that way. Is he hoping to win now? Maybe. Maybe he just wants to insulate and develop the talent. But then is he missing some high end pieces?

Instead of being philosophical, let's look at what Y could have done.
2019 Seider is a f***ing gem. 2nd round, hoglander would have the time and ice to develop into a solid bottom 6 guy.
2020 meh. You could have done better than Raymond

2021 two solid picks in Edvinsson and Cossa but you have to be thinking that the forwards need some talent.

2022 Kasper. Everyone loves size but still not addressing the top 6

2023 Danielson and a small PMD. I like both but far from addressing needs and frankly, not in FA either.

It's difficult to understand Stevie's plans for contention. He loves the tough middle 6 guys but they're useless without a robust 1st line. Why spend 1sts on middle 6 dudes when you can at least take a swing at a top line guy with a huge pressing need. Maybe he thinks he has those guys in the organization but I don't see it.

Furthermore he's spending on more middle 6 players, voiding possibility of high picks while supplanting himself as middle of the road. Yes, surround your young talent with mentors but aging mentors or really good mentors. The middle is truly the graveyard of the league.

 

[Hockeyfan2390]

Time for a bump.

Unless a miracle happens, Detroit is going to be out of the playoffs for the 8th straight year.

Sorry, but Yzerman's seat needs to start getting warmer and warmer, because it was not supposed to take this long to get Detroit back into the postseason. Even worse, only two of his draft picks since taking over in 2019 are regular NHL players.

In before the usual "but but but look at what he inherited" posts. Other than Larkin, Rasmussen and Veleno, this team and coaching staff is 100% his doing.

Yzerman was brought back to Detroit to be special, not just another run-of-the-mill GM. And it hasn't happened. If we're sitting here next year and the exact same thing is happening, then his job needs to be in question. It's not sacrilege to say that the Yzerplan is way off course and way behind schedule.

No other general manager in a serious hockey market would get 6 years on the job and be viewed as acceptable that they're not in the playoffs yet.

 

[Heldig]

Need to trade for Kyle Connor in the offseason. PLease.

 

[Davo Ikinzom]

Best GM in the league.

 

[FissionFire]

The team is thin on impact players. Bad lottery luck has really hampered the rebuild and now they look to be entering the dreaded perpetual bubble team stage. Beyond Seider, Raymond, and Larkin they don’t really have any players who can control games. It’s still too early for this team to be where they are in the standings. The next 2-3 years when Edvinsson, Kasper, Danielson join the team will determine whether this is a core that can be a winner or not. It’s still way too soon to judge Yzerman considering how totally bare the teams talent and prospects were when he took over.

 

[norrisnick]

Time for a bump.

Unless a miracle happens, Detroit is going to be out of the playoffs for the 8th straight year.

Sorry, but Yzerman's seat needs to start getting warmer and warmer, because it was not supposed to take this long to get Detroit back into the postseason. Even worse, only two of his draft picks since taking over in 2019 are regular NHL players.

In before the usual "but but but look at what he inherited" posts. Other than Larkin, Rasmussen and Veleno, this team and coaching staff is 100% his doing.

Yzerman was brought back to Detroit to be special, not just another run-of-the-mill GM. And it hasn't happened. If we're sitting here next year and the exact same thing is happening, then his job needs to be in question. It's not sacrilege to say that the Yzerplan is way off course and way behind schedule.

No other general manager in a serious hockey market would get 6 years on the job and be viewed as acceptable that they're not in the playoffs yet.

According to whom?

Not yet 5 years.

 

[ViewsFromThe6ix]

Point blank, Yzerman has done an awful job with asset and cap management in Detroit. He should really have taken a page from Kent Hughes' book. Elite asset management in getting two 1sts for a cap dump in Monahan, then use those assets to bring in young players like Dach and Newhook. Instead of weaponizing the cap space, he uses it on average players like Copp, Husso and Holl, gives them long term deals, and they aren't bad enough to get a high pick.

Incoming Yzerman truthers who are blinded by his past success.

The team is thin on impact players. Bad lottery luck has really hampered the rebuild and now they look to be entering the dreaded perpetual bubble team stage. Beyond Seider, Raymond, and Larkin they don’t really have any players who can control games. It’s still too early for this team to be where they are in the standings. The next 2-3 years when Edvinsson, Kasper, Danielson join the team will determine whether this is a core that can be a winner or not. It’s still way too soon to judge Yzerman considering how totally bare the teams talent and prospects were when he took over.

They've done an awful job at getting young players in via trade. Bad lottery luck is only half the story.

 

[FissionFire]

Point blank, Yzerman has done an awful job with asset and cap management in Detroit. He should really have taken a page from Kent Hughes' book. Elite asset management in getting two 1sts for a cap dump in Monahan, then use those assets to bring in young players like Dach and Newhook. Instead of weaponizing the cap space, he uses it on average players like Copp, Husso and Holl, gives them long term deals, and they aren't bad enough to get a high pick.

Incoming Yzerman truthers who are blinded by his past success.



They've done an awful job at getting young players in via trade. Bad lottery luck is only half the story.

Who did they have to trade to get good young players when Yzerman took over though? And what cap space? It wasn’t until the last year or so that Detroit has gotten out of cap hell.

The only decent tradable players Detroit had in 2019 were Mantha (who got a great trade return), Bertuzzi (another great trade return), and maybe Hronek (wasn’t all that valuable back then). The 2019 roster was a capped out team centered around amazingly bad contracts like Abdelkader, Nielsen, DeKeyser. Madison Bowey was a regular on the team. Check out the roster and try to figure out where any value is there remembering that this was a team with zero cap space.

Detroit Red Wings 2019-20 roster and scoring statistics at hockeydb.com

The roster, scoring and goaltender statistics for the 2019-20 Detroit Red Wings playing in the NHL.

www.hockeydb.com

Has Yzerman been perfect? Definitely not, but people are quick to forget just how dire the situation in Detroit was when he took over. Btw, the top prospects when he took over were Zadina, Cholowski, Rasmussen, Veleno, Gustav Lindstrom, and Givani Smith. The system was bare.

 

[Handshot]

Detroit's lack of elite talent is their downfall imo. Compare their roster with a team like Colorado - how many players on the Avalanche would you rank above the best Wings player? Larkin, Seider, and Raymond are all good players but they're not at all in the conversation for being among the best in the league at their position.

I think the team the Red Wings are currently gonna need to model themselves after are the Hurricanes who similarly lack the best of the best level talent but make up for it by combining a skilled top 6 with an top tier D core. If they fail to do that then I think there is a real risk the current iteration of this team never reaches true contender status

 

[Hockeyfan2390]

Who did they have to trade to get good young players when Yzerman took over though? And what cap space? It wasn’t until the last year or so that Detroit has gotten out of cap hell.

The only decent tradable players Detroit had in 2019 were Mantha (who got a great trade return), Bertuzzi (another great trade return), and maybe Hronek (wasn’t all that valuable back then). The 2019 roster was a capped out team centered around amazingly bad contracts like Abdelkader, Nielsen, DeKeyser. Madison Bowey was a regular on the team. Check out the roster and try to figure out where any value is there remembering that this was a team with zero cap space.

Detroit Red Wings 2019-20 roster and scoring statistics at hockeydb.com

The roster, scoring and goaltender statistics for the 2019-20 Detroit Red Wings playing in the NHL.

www.hockeydb.com

Has Yzerman been perfect? Definitely not, but people are quick to forget just how dire the situation in Detroit was when he took over. Btw, the top prospects when he took over were Zadina, Cholowski, Rasmussen, Veleno, Gustav Lindstrom, and Givani Smith. The system was bare.

It's been 5 years. That's more than enough time to replenish the prospect pool.

Only 2 of Yzerman's draft picks since 2019 are regular NHL players today. That ain't cutting it.

Ken Holland has been gone since 2019. All of his awful contracts are gone. At some point, this becomes Yzerman's mess, and he's been given FAR too much leeway and rope because of what he did on the ice as a player.

There needs to be serious pressure on him from up top (which won't happen because Chris Ilitch doesn't give a damn) to be in the playoffs in 2025. None of us would get this long to try and turn things around in our respective jobs, why do these sports executives get to?

 

[ricky0034]

sometimes I wonder if we're gonna be sitting here in 2050 with people still blaming Ken Holland for the Wings not winning a Cup

 

[Hockeyfan2390]

Point blank, Yzerman has done an awful job with asset and cap management in Detroit. He should really have taken a page from Kent Hughes' book. Elite asset management in getting two 1sts for a cap dump in Monahan, then use those assets to bring in young players like Dach and Newhook. Instead of weaponizing the cap space, he uses it on average players like Copp, Husso and Holl, gives them long term deals, and they aren't bad enough to get a high pick.

Incoming Yzerman truthers who are blinded by his past success.



They've done an awful job at getting young players in via trade. Bad lottery luck is only half the story.

The Yzerman truthers absolutely are blinded by his success as a player, and can't differentiate the fact that Steve Yzerman's work as a GM has nothing to do with his playing career.

He's not infallible, and it's time to start asking questions. Just about any other GM in hockey could have taken over in 2019, and the Red Wings would probably be right where they are right now.

Yzerman wasn't hired in Detroit to be average, he was brought back to be special. And the fact that his team is about to miss the playoffs again (this year mostly thanks to a ridiculous self implosion that I still can't fathom) isn't good enough. This is the Red Wings, not the Sabres or Blue Jackets or Senators where a random playoff appearance per decade is the standard.

sometimes I wonder if we're gonna be sitting here in 2050 with people still blaming Ken Holland for the Wings not winning a Cup

100%. You'll still have the "trust the Yzerplan!!" and the "oh you think you know more than the CAPTAIN?!??" sycophants.

Yes, Detroit getting boned in the Draft Lottery was absurd and a big setback. But that's not the only way to acquire top players. Instead, Yzerman seems hell-bent on creating the most mid-roster possible. And if it's not his goal to create the most dominant team possible, then what was he brought back for? Because it sure wasn't to still not be in the playoffs by 2024 and to have only 2 draft picks since 2019 as regular NHL players.

 

[Crunchy]

@Hockeyfan2390 is the guy that fires Harbaugh after the 2020 season.

 

[Hockeyfan2390]

@Hockeyfan2390 is the guy that fires Harbaugh after the 2020 season.

Not even close to the same situation or even the same sport.

And let's hope that if Detroit ever does get to the mountaintop again, they don't cheat like Harbaugh did, or constantly flirt with other teams like Harbaugh did.