The Three Sins That Doomed the Yzerplan

An Autopsy on Steve Yzerman's tenure as GM in Detroit

Last week we learned that Steve Yzerman was out as Detroit’s general manager. While my first reaction can best be described as shock, it was quickly replaced with a sense of relief, as Yzerman was stuck in a Groundhog Day of perpetual mediocrity.

To be fair, he never got much lottery luck, and Detroit just happens to be in a division that has become the most competitive in hockey, serving to block them from making the playoffs with respectable point totals, but after 7 years we can affirmatively say there are far more questions than answers. This is highlighted by the fact Simon Edvinsson, Alex DeBrincat, and Patrick Kane’s contracts, along with Dylan Larkin’s trade request, all remain unresolved.

Chris Ilitch mercifully called time on Yzerman’s run as general manager.

Ultimately Yzerman suffered the same fate as Alan Trammell, with Joe Dumars being the only former Detroit sports legend to manage his team to the top of his sport. Yzerman was the last best shot for the Ken Holland management tree, and may be the last former great whom we see take over management of a team. That strategy seems to have lost favor, and it remains to be seen whether it returns.

But enough of that for now, let’s take a look at a few decisions which — if they were made differently — might have resulted in a better outcome for Yzerman and, by extension, the Detroit Red Wings franchise.

Sin #1: Never Hiring his Al Murray

When Yzerman was hired to lead the Tampa Bay Lightning organization, one of his key hires was Al Murray as his Director of Amateur Scouting. By that point, Murray had a long track record as a scout, and worked with Yzerman when they were tasked with running Team Canada in 2007 and 2010.

Murray served as a scout in the Kings organization for nearly 20 years, drafting cornerstone pieces Anže Kopitar and Dustin Brown. After leaving the Kings organization, he was a scout for Team Canada before being hired on in Tampa when Yzerman arrived.

His drafts for the Bolts were impressive, as the team selected Nikita Kucherov, Andrey Vasilevskiy, and Brayden Point, all key contributors to the two Stanley Cups won by Tampa, along with key depth pieces like Anthony Cirelli and Ondrej Palat.

When Yzerman came to Detroit, Tampa elevated Murray to Assistant General Manager, locking him into the franchise where he currently serves the same role as Yzerman, namely Senior Advisor.

Rather than attempt to find the equivalent of Al Murray, Yzerman leaned on Kris Draper to run his amateur drafts. There was precious little to suggest Draper was the best person for the position. His one coup as a front office executive was drafting Tyler Bertuzzi, who has thrived in Chicago after bouncing around the league.

With Draper running Detroit’s drafts, the Red Wings have one of the lowest number of games played relative to their draft position.

Credit: Ruben Flam-Shepherd

The poster children for Draper’s failed amateur drafts are Sebastian Cossa and Nate Danielson.

Sin #2: Never Replacing Pat Verbeek

While Yzerman fanned spectacularly in finding a competent leader for his amateur drafts, he did luck out in getting Pat Verbeek to join him in Detroit. While it’s tough to suss out exactly which decisions were heavily influenced by Verbeek, things started to go south very quickly once Verbeek left for Anaheim on February 3, 2022.

Detroit committed heavily to free agency in the summer of 2022, bringing on Andrew Copp, Ben Chiarot, Olli Määttä, Dominik Kubalik, and David Perron. The following offseason Yzerman signed JT Compher and Justin Holl. Other underwhelming free agency acquisitions included Vladimir Tarasenko and Erik Gustafsson.

These moves served to advance Detroit into the mushy middle, but none were difference makers. While we’ll never know whether Detroit made strong efforts to sign better players who simply chose other destinations, your results are your results, and the vast majority of these players added little if anything to a rebuilding team.

To be fair, Yzerman did acquire Patrick Kane in free agency, but that was heavily influenced by Kane being besties with Alex DeBrincat, who orchestrated a trade from Ottawa back to his hometown team. There was also the acquisition of Shayne Gostisbehere in the summer of 2023, but he was only signed for one season, leaving the club the following summer for the Carolina Hurricanes.

When Yzerman was pressed about the poor performance of his pro scouting group, he admitted they were ‘learning on the job’ which was a startling admission from someone as seasoned as Yzerman. His failure to replace Verbeek was the second of the three legs that bring us to the current situation in Detroit.

Sin #3: Committing to Dylan Larkin

The back to back games on February 27th and 28th against the Ottawa Senators in 2023 was a watershed moment for this franchise. On the 26th, Detroit sat in 4th place in the division and 3 points out of 8th place in the Eastern Conference. There was hope Detroit could create some separation from the pack and perhaps nose their way into the playoff picture.

Instead the Senators clobbered the Red Wings on back to back nights, winning by a combined score of 12-3, thereby ending Detroit’s pretensions of being a team on the rise. Yzerman was disgusted by the team’s lack of effort, and he made that clear when he traded Fillip Hronek on March 1 and Tyler Bertuzzi on March 2. His biggest sin, however, was committing to Dylan Larkin, signing the center to an 8 year contract with iron-clad trade protection.

Yzerman’s first error was committing to Larkin as captain in 2020, but that wouldn’t have been a big issue if he hadn’t doubled down and committed to Larkin after the team’s gutless performances against the Senators. Larkin, signed to a nearly $70 million extension on March 1 2023, wept as he discussed losing Tyler Bertuzzi as a teammate.

It’s easy to engage in what ifs after the fact, but I never viewed Larkin as captain material. Yzerman is extremely competitive, so on the one hand you can understand his willingness to build around Larkin, but with the benefit of hindsight it was one of his biggest errors.

If Yzerman sent Larkin packing prior to the trade deadline rather than signing him to that extension, there’s a good chance the Red Wings would have finished lower in the 2023 draft pecking order, with an outside shot at winning the lottery. Max Bultman highlighted the amount of talent at center in the 2023 draft in his most recent article for the Athletic.

…the true stars of that draft were Connor Bedard, Leo Carlsson, Adam Fantilli and Will Smith, all of whom went in the top four. And the teams that landed those players all finished the 2022-23 season with 60 or fewer points.

Bultman’s larger point is the terrible free agent signings helped to push Detroit out of the running for the best centers in that draft class, but if Detroit traded Larkin, there’s a great chance they finish closer to 60 points than 80.

The next general manager will be tasked with upgrading Detroit’s amateur and pro scouting group, and may be able to fix this third and final sin of the Yzerman era by trading Larkin and potentially drafting that franchise 1C in the 2027 draft.