Is it time to declare the ‘Yzerplan’ a failure in Detroit?

For 25 years, the Detroit Red Wings were the model of consistency. From 1991 until 2016, they made the playoffs in every single season – an unprecedented feat in modern-day professional sports. Beyond the consistency, they were the class of the NHL for much of that period, winning four Stanley Cups (1997, 1998, 2002 and 2008) while routinely going deep in the playoffs.

All good things must come to an end, and it was no different for the Red Wings. After a quarter of a century of playoff berths, deep runs and championships, there was always going to be an expiry date. General manager Steve Yzerman arrived on the scene in 2019, with the intent of executing the ‘Yzerplan’ in Detroit much like he did with the Tampa Bay Lightning ahead of the latter’s back to back Stanley Cup victories in 2020 and 2021.

Fast forward five-plus years later and, while there has been some promise, there has been little to show for it on the ice in Detroit. After half a decade of rebuilding, the Red Wings have yet to make the playoffs. There has been a steady rise in win percentage over the last five seasons, though, as the Red Wings ultimately missed the playoffs by just one point last season. So, tangibly speaking, there has been a marked, albeit slow, improvement year over year.

Despite the annual gains, there still seems to be a sense of pessimism around the Red Wings and a feeling of it being Groundhog Day in Detroit. What led us to this after so much early positivity?

The one thing that has slowly crept up in conversations I’ve had about rebuilding teams – not specifically pertaining to the Red Wings, but on a more broad, macro scale – is the inherent risk accompanying them. Traditional “tear it down” rebuilds have been romanticized the last 20 years or so after it resulted in three Stanley Cups for both the Chicago Blackhawks and Pittsburgh Penguins in the mid-2000s; it didn’t work out too shabby for the Los Angeles Kings or Washington Capitals, either. Many fans and pundits will point to those examples as the most authentic way of building a contender: bottom out for multiple years, give yourself the best chance to land a generational star (or two) and build the rest of the team around him.

Ideally, this is what every team would want – but there are no guarantees of it happening.

In the case of the Red Wings, despite being on the losing side of things for more than half of a decade, there has yet to be a crown jewel emerge from it all. The Red Wings have drafted some really nice players; most notably Lucas Raymond and Moritz Seider, who have already become cornerstones of the franchise. Simon Edvinsson and Marco Kasper have become consistent NHLers over the last 12 months (more so the former) and look to have promise in terms of higher ceilings.

But after those four, there have been few and far between Yzerman-drafted prospects that have made impacts at the NHL level.

You aren’t going to hit on every pick, and there are still some draft picks (including the three first rounders in the last two drafts) that have time to make an impact, but after this much time invested in a rebuild, the amount – or rather lack thereof – of home grown picks hitting is starting to become concerning. You also have to hope to hit on draft picks beyond the first round; to this point, only three of Yzerman’s post-first round picks have made the NHL, combined for a grand total of 27 games.

The drafting hasn’t been “bad,” per se, but there hasn’t been that diamond in the rough selection. Take the 2020 NHL Draft, for instance, when the Red Wings selected William Wallinder in the second round. When Wallinder was selected (32 overall, thus the first pick in Round 2), names like Emil Andrae, Will Cuylle, Luke Evangelista, Brock Faber, Marat Khusnutdinov and JJ Peterka were all still on the board and drafted later in that round. The Wings had two other picks in the 2020 second round (Cross Hanas and Theodor Neiderbach); along with Wallinder, all three have combined for zero NHL games.

The year later, the Red Wings moved up in the draft to select one of the two goaltenders projected to go in the first round: Sebastian Cossa. After a rocky transition to the professional level, Cossa has seemingly turned a corner in his development and has played well in the AHL; he has one career NHL appearance that came earlier this week in relief, netting him his first win. But while Cossa has corrected course, it is hard to ignore the fact that the Red Wings passed on Minnesota Wild prospect goaltending phenom Jesper Wallstedt, whom many believe could be the best goaltending prospect there is right now. But the jury is still out on this selection, and to be fair, the 2021 NHL Draft was as unique as they come after the pandemic caused so much remote scouting.

As we await to see what fully comes of all the Yzerman draft picks, more and more years come off the clock as the fans (and players) await for the team to turn a corner. Years of losing can affect a room, and for a team that has not experienced postseason hockey since before the Vegas Golden Knights entered the NHL, there is an inherent consequence that comes with it.

Whether we want to admit it or not, players learn to lose. As one NHL executive pointed out to me, a collection of young talent doesn’t make a team and doesn’t automatically equate to winning. You need good veterans and leadership; there needs to be an identity that knows how to win.

Detroit has added veterans along the way; Ben Chiarot, J.T. Compher, Andrew Copp, Alex DeBrincat and Justin Holl being several of them. All decent to very good players, but none has come in with a boat load of experience in winning (Compher aside) or being cornerstone leaders of their former teams.

Patrick Kane and Vladimir Tarasenko have been additions over the past 12 months that check those boxes, but with both being well past their respective primes, is it enough? And, arguably more so, did they jump on the bandwagon too late to save the Red Wings’ pre-existing core?

Team captain Dylan Larkin has been around for a decade and has been through it all during the Red Wings’ rebuild; he even was around during the tail end of the playoff years in Detroit’s past life. Larkin is a quality player but has never shown to consistently be a superstar (though has shown flashes) in the NHL and is now locked up long term in Detroit. His story is not fully written, but it is reminding me of what we saw happen with Claude Giroux with the Philadelphia Flyers during the mid to late 2010s: hitch your wagon to a sinking ship and, like a good captain, go all the way down with it. I’m not going to sit here and point the finger at Larkin (or Giroux, for that matter), but you have to wonder if someone who has experienced so much losing is the right man to lead a team out of a rebuild.

There is a heavy risk that comes with tearing it down to the studs and completely starting over, and the Red Wings (though not the only team) are now staring in the face with potential consequences. They are still right on the cusp of the playoffs and could very well make it, but after this many years of rebuilding, is a bubble team where Yzerman hoped his group would be? By attempting half measures with a slew of mid-tier free agent additions, he’s lifted this team to perennial Mid status and locked in multiple expensive contracts.

The book is not yet fully written on the “yzerplan,” but the clock is definitely ticking and the seats should be beginning to get hot – and not just for head coach Derek Lalonde.

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Is it time to declare the ‘Yzerplan’ a failure in Detroit?

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