Time to Clean House

Farewell to the DRW Country Club

With the news of Steve Yzerman being ‘moved’ out of the GM chair in Detroit, the time has come for Chis Ilitch to revamp the entire Detroit Red Wings front office. When you’ve had as much success as this club had from the 1990s to the 2010s, it’s understandable to lean on those who played a major role in that success; but at some point, you must come to the realization that the people who won so much on the ice aren’t always best suited to do the job off the ice.

Sure, Steve Yzerman had plenty of success turning around the Tampa Bay Lightning, but he had a phenomenal Director of Amateur Scouting in Al Murray who stayed with the Tampa organization when Yzerman returned to Detroit. He also had Pat Verbeek help with scouting both in Tampa and when he returned to the state of Michigan, but Verbeek left for Anaheim in 2022 to run their organization.

Yzerman didn’t replace either of them with comparable talent and it’s set the organization back.

I’ve been critical of Detroit’s North American Amateur Scouting, along with the Pro Scouting group. It’s reasonable to wonder whether many of the people would be in these roles if they weren’t former Red Wings who played during the glory days?

As far as I’m concerned, the questionable decisions when it comes to the front office, combined with the commitment to Dylan Larkin as team captain, put the franchise in a bind. The team certainly had enough talent to make the playoffs once or twice over the past 4 seasons, yet they always found a way to miss out on post-season play.

Professional sports isn’t an area where excuses are allowed for very long, and patience with this organization has been stretched to the breaking point, so something had to give. While I’m surprised about the timing of the move — with Dylan Larkin’s trade request still unresolved, Simon Edvinsson’s RFA contract needing to be completed, and Alex DeBrincat’s impending free agency next summer — at least it signals there will be a major change in direction.

And oftentimes, change is the first step to a brighter future, even when there are so many unknowns in front of you.

Learning from Another Local Sports Team

I’ve witnessed what we’ve seen over the past 10 years with the Red Wings after Lloyd Carr retired as the University of Michigan’s head football coach. Carr was an internal hire who was part of the Bo Schembechler coaching tree. Early on, it wasn’t clear he was cut out for the job, but then the team won an unexpected national championship in 1997. That solidified ‘Bo’s Boys’ as the faction that held sway inside Michigan football for the next decade.

When Carr retired, there was no clear heir apparent to replace him. So an external hire was made when Rich Rodriguez was named coach. While Rodriguez did plenty to fail on his own, the Schembechler and Carr internal factions within the program certainly had no qualms about creating as many issues for him as possible. When Rich Rod failed, a ‘Michigan Man’ was named to replace him in Brady Hoke. Hoke — a member of the Carr coaching tree — was wildly unqualified and, after a fortuitous 11-2 campaign in his first season in Ann Arbor, stumbled badly before being replaced by Jim Harbaugh.

Between Lloyd Carr’s final season and Jim Harbaugh’s first season, Michigan went a combined 35-40 if you remove the 11-2 outlier season. The one constant during this time frame — outside of losing games one never before thought losable — was the internal power struggle that took place between the Bo Schembechler and Lloyd Carr factions.

While Jim Harbaugh was one of ‘Bo’s Boys’ he had one crucial difference from Brady Hoke: he’d proven himself, first at Stanford University, and then with the San Francisco 49’ers. When Harbaugh returned to Ann Arbor, no one could question his qualifications. That combined with Michigan football no longer looking formidable over the past decade resulted in Harbaugh having plenty of support.

Competence trumped everything else.

Harbaugh slowly but surely returned the football program to prominence, beating Ohio State three times in a row before making the college football playoff two years in a row, ultimately winning the national championship in January 2024.

Rebooting the Red Wings

When Steve Yzerman returned to run the Red Wings, I viewed him as a Harbaugh figure, particularly given he’d managed the Canadian hockey team to two Olympic gold medals and restored Tampa to Cup contenders.

I was wrong.

While there are plenty of factors we can blame for this outcome, ultimately Yzerman is the person responsible for scouting, for making trades, and for signing free agents. What’s done is done, and while we now have our final verdict on the Yzerplan, it’s important that Chris Ilitch not double down on the current management group.

This is why I think it’s important he doesn’t go with the easy route by naming Kris Draper as general manager. If Draper wasn’t a former Red Wings player and didn’t have decades-long relationships with many of the people in the organization, he would never garner serious consideration for such an important role.

With Steve Yzerman, Chris Ilitch gave the Ken Holland management tree its last and best chance to return the organization to prominence. With Yzerman’s failure, it’s time to hire the most qualified candidate, not the most comfortable one.