Steve Yzerman asked for patience when he returned to Detroit. But it seems like forever ago now — 2,645 days, to be exact — since the Red Wings brought back “The Captain” to right the ship in Hockeytown.
And one lesson professional sports teaches us all, again and again is this: Even legends carry an expiration date in this line of work.
So with this storied Original Six franchise mired in the NHL’s longest active playoff drought — now 10 years and counting — and the current captain, Dylan Larkin, locked in a trade-demand stalemate with management this summer, the shock of Wednesday’s announcement that Yzerman is out as general manager after seven years on the job was mostly due to name recognition.
“Steve’s lifetime of contributions to the Red Wings has meant more to this franchise than words can truly express, and I have the highest level of respect for his continued commitment to our organization,” said Chris Ilitch, the Red Wings’ governor and CEO, in a statement. “We are thankful for Steve’s hard work and dedication as General Manager and are grateful knowing Steve will remain where he belongs — here with the Red Wings family.”
That was how this seismic shift was explained in a news release Wednesday morning, that Yzerman is “transitioning” from his role as GM to a senior advisor’s role with the organization. The team says a search for a new head of hockey operations is underway, and I’d imagine both assistant GMs — Kris Draper and Shawn Horcoff — are internal candidates under consideration for a promotion.
The awkward timing of this move, so late in the NHL’s offseason calendar, certainly suggests that could be the case. But surely Ilitch has seen the benefits with the Tigers of going outside the organization to bring in a progressive-thinking executive to modernize the whole operation. (It’s worth noting that Tigers GM Jeff Greenberg was an assistant GM with the Chicago Blackhawks before he arrived, too.) Carolina and its data-driven front office winning the Stanley Cup last month should be another reminder. Ditto the Florida Panthers and their back-to-back titles before that.
Regardless of where they go from here, though, this sort of family counseling certainly isn’t what anybody had in mind back in April 2019, when everyone gathered at Little Caesars Arena for a welcome-home party. Yzerman’s triumphant return, after spending several years building the Tampa Bay Lightning into a perennial Stanley Cup contender, felt like a championship parade in its own right.
Yet even then, Yzerman, the Hall of Famer who spent two decades as the Red Wings’ captain and led the franchise to three Stanley Cups as a player, took note of the implications his iconic status carried.
“I’m excited to be back,” Yzerman said at the time. “I’m also, to be honest with you, I’m nervous. I’ve got a lot of work to do. And I’ve got to do a good job.”
With the Red Wings still in the early stages of a full-scale rebuild at that point, he declined to offer a timeline on when the franchise might return to the competitive success it enjoyed through a playoff streak that lasted a quarter-century here. But while his mere presence bought everyone time, even Yzerman knew the clock would start ticking eventually.
“I know there’s a limit to the patience of the fans, of the media, of everyone,” he said, before adding with a smile. “Of that boss, for that matter.”
If that boss finally reached his limit this spring, as another second-half collapse meant another year without playoff hockey here — the LCA still hasn’t hosted a playoff game since it opened in 2017 — he was well behind the fans and the media. The Wings were loudly booed off the ice after a 5-3 loss to New Jersey in their regular-season finale in mid-April — on “Fan Appreciation Night,” no less — but that was hardly the first time we’d heard that sort of unrest.
“Clearly, we are not where we and our fans expect to be as an organization” Ilitch said in Wednesday’s statement.
Still, while Yzerman acknowledged how “very disappointed” both he and the Ilitches were at season’s end, he pushed back on the notion that it might be time for him to step aside.
“I intend to do my job to the best of my ability,” he said, “and I intend to see this through.”
What changed between then and now? The Larkin saga, most notably. His trade request shortly after the season felt like the final straw here, the culmination of both a decade of frustration on the ice and a deteriorating relationship with management the past few years, not to mention a league-wide trend of player empowerment.
Larkin standoff leaves Wings in limbo
Whatever the reasons, though, the resulting standoff — as Larkin, the homegrown star, used his contractual no-movement rights as leverage and Yzerman apparently held firm to his own trade demands with other NHL GMs — left the Red Wings in a seemingly intractable spot.
Whether Yzerman’s pending exit as GM will change any of that remains to be seen. I wouldn’t bet on a quick resolution, for what it’s worth. Ilitch said he’s “looking forward to bringing in new leadership to build the championship-caliber organization Hockeytown deserves,” but Yzerman will remain in his current role running the day-to-day hockey operations until his successor is named. And the next obvious inflection point really isn’t until training camp in September.
Beyond that, there’s still much more to be figured out here, including a new contract for another young cornerstone piece, defenseman Simon Edvinsson, who’s a restricted free agent, and a possible extension for Alex DeBrincat, a 40-goal scorer whose interest in re-signing could hinge on what happens next with Larkin.
There’s still time to resolve that this summer, obviously. But, clearly, the urgency reached a breaking point here in recent weeks. And if you were listening closely back in late April, Yzerman actually admitted that might be the case as he talked about the self-assessment that comes necessarily, if not naturally, in a situation like this.
“I think everything has to be assessed, how we do things,” said Yzerman, who does leave this job better than the one he inherited. “It would be ignorant to not really have an in-depth look at our team, at our organization, for sure. Do we need major shake-ups? Maybe, maybe not.”
Well, now we have a more definitive answer. And with the Red Wings still in the same spot they were when Yzerman returned in 2019 — on the outside, looking in — maybe this was inevitable. But what was true then is true now, too: They have a lot of work to do.
john.niyo@detroitnews.com
@JohnNiyo
This article originally appeared on The Detroit News: Niyo: Patience doesn’t last forever, not even for Steve Yzerman
Reporting by John Niyo, The Detroit News / The Detroit News
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By John Niyo, The Detroit News | USA TODAY Network
