When Steve Yzerman took the reins as general manager of the Detroit Red Wings, the rebuild was supposed to be a slow, steady climb back to glory. But looking back, was the Hall of Famer's biggest mistake trying to speed things up?
Let's rewind to Yzerman's first season. It was brutal—and that's putting it lightly. The Wings finished dead last with a 17-49-5 record, a staggering 23 points behind the next-worst team. Captain Dylan Larkin, the lone remaining player from that squad, remembers the sting all too well.
"I think for a lot of those years you go into the season and you want to make the playoffs," Larkin reflected. "But realistically, was that going to happen? I'm trying to say there was some years where it wasn't really what we were trying to do."
It was ugly, no doubt. And in hindsight, maybe that's exactly where the Red Wings should have stayed a little longer.
The team showed signs of life in the COVID-shortened 2020-21 season, bumping up to 19 wins and 48 points. By 2021-22, they hit 32 wins and 74 points. That summer, Yzerman decided it was time to go all in. He signed a wave of free agents—Andrew Copp, Ben Chiarot, Olli Maatta, David Perron, Jordan Oesterle, Robert Hagg, and Dominik Kubalik—and traded for goalie Ville Husso.
The result? Just three more wins and six more points. Since then, the Red Wings have been stuck on a frustrating treadmill of mediocrity, never quite bad enough for a top pick, never good enough for the playoffs.
Yzerman himself admitted he saw the warning signs. "We had concerns," he said at his season-ending press conference. Even during a stretch where the Wings sat third overall, he and assistant GM Kris Draper spotted cracks in the foundation.
"Seven years ago, I knew what I signed up for," Yzerman explained. "I knew what the job, the task at hand, was. And so, when exactly were we going to be a playoff team? I could never pinpoint that."
The faces keep changing, the lineup keeps shifting, but the result stays the same. For Red Wings fans—and anyone rocking the Winged Wheel gear—the question lingers: Did Yzerman pull the trigger too soon?