An NHL offseason full of drama continued Wednesday morning, as the Red Wings announced that Yzerman is transitioning from his roles as general manager and executive vice president but will remain with the organization as a senior adviser to the governor and CEO, Chris Ilitch.
Yzerman, a legend in Detroit as a player, had early success as a GM when he took over for Tampa Bay in 2010 and built the team into a Stanley Cup Final team in 2015. He took the Red Wings GM role at the start of the 2019-20 season, so he wasn’t the Lightning GM for the 2020 and 2021 back-to-back Cup wins, but he was largely responsible for assembling that core.
As for his time in Detroit, the rebuilding strategy hasn’t panned out the same way. Yzerman appeared to draft quite well, and some of those prospects, like Moritz Seider and Lucas Raymond, have found success. But Yzerman has failed to assemble the correct players around the main core. In seven seasons with Yzerman at the helm, the Red Wings failed to make the playoffs even once.
The elephant in the room leading up to this was a fed-up captain and first-line center in Dylan Larkin, who requested a trade after a frustrating end to last season. Will Larkin stick around now that the Red Wings are pivoting from the Yzerplan? That’s one of five big questions the Red Wings must answer now that Yzerman is no longer the GM.
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