Something has to change for the Detroit Red Wings.
And that change must start at the top, with Red Wings general manager Steve Yzerman.
After 10 years of missing the Stanley Cup playoffs – including, most importantly, seven years under Yzerman, as the Wings have taken over the Buffalo Sabres’ mantle as the longest active playoff drought this year – it’s time for owner Christopher Ilitch to act.
It’s time to admit that for the better part of a decade, since bringing back one of the team’s most iconic players in 2019 to return the franchise to prominence, Yzerman’s tenure has yielded little more than mediocrity and frustration.
It’s time for Ilitch to do exactly what his GM has not done. It’s time for him to make a bold decision
And that means acting decisively and firing Yzerman.
Failure to do this would mean only one thing: Ilitch doesn’t care about this team – or its fans.
Believe me, I take no pleasure is advocating for Yzerman’s termination. It’s sad to see such a great player return home and fail so badly at such an important task. It also means this rebuild could drag on even longer, if the new GM cleans house and starts over with a new staff.
It’s a shame to see what has become of the Wings. They were once the gold standard of the NHL as gritty, grinding champions only too happy to drop the gloves when they weren’t busy scoring bushels of goals.
Under Yzerman, the team has no identity beyond being a power-play bully that folds every March. The Wings’ record in the third month of the year, over the past five season, under three different coachs: 3-8-3 in 2022, 5-9-1 in 2023, 3-9-2 in 2024, 4-10-0 in 2025 and 5-7-2 in 2026.
But this year marked a low point, considering the heights the Wings had reached in late January, when they were tied for the most points in the Eastern Conference in Todd McLellan’s first full season as the head coach.
Finally, it seemed to be coming together for Yzerman. He had made the rare bold decision to fire Derek Lalonde on Dec. 25, 2024 and replace him with McLellan, whose old-school approach of straight talk and simple strategy seemed to resonate with players.
Then, at the NHL trade deadline on March 6, with the Wings still in good shape with a third-place spot in the Atlantic Division, Yzerman fought his usual instinct to be a seller and instead acquired help in the form of then-33-year-old defenseman Justin Faulk and 37-year-old third-line forward David Perron.
The problem was, the Wings needed scoring. When Yzerman made the deals, the Wings were 23rd in the league scoring – exactly where they sat heading into Sunday’s games.
As an ironic reminder from the Hockey Gods who hate timidness, on the night of the trade deadline, Dylan Larkin suffered a leg injury and missed the next seven games. The Wings paid for Yzerman’s conservative approach, struggling to make up for Larkin’s scoring as they began their slide.
Yzerman will point to Larkin’s injury as the main reason the Wings choked away another March, instead of taking responsibility for failing to swing a bigger deadline deal that would have added more offensive power to offset any potential injuries.
Yzerman’s failure this season reached a low point in Saturday’s home finale, when the Wings were booed off the ice after a 5-3 loss to the New Jersey Devils, who had little to play for on the road after having already been eliminated from the playoff race.
Could Yzerman hear that? Could Ilitch? Or are they deaf to the animosity and frustration of a devout fans who walk into a stadium built on the glory and the ghosts of the names on the sweaters they wear to every game?
This was supposed to be the season the Wings turned the corner and made the playoffs. Instead, they just turned in more of the same futility for fans to endure.
“There’s been some great years here,” Larkin told reporters Saturday, “and they want us back to that and that’s what they expect here. To hear that, it’s very difficult. We’re down. I’m down, as down as I could be right now.”
What’s makes the Wings’ failure even more difficult to stomach is that it continues while Detroit’s three other sports teams are on the rise – with each of their rebirths coming only after a GM or president of operations change.
As for Yzerman? He owns the longest playoff drought among current NHL GMs at seven years. The scary part is he may not think that’s long enough, since he has become fond of referencing his predecessor, Ken Holland, who said rebuilds take eight to 10 years.
Of course Yzerman would prefer the most generous timeline when it comes to judging his tenure. But the only timeline that should matter is the one that measures the frustration of a fanbase that has put up with years of failure under Yzerman’s leadership.
If Ilitch doesn’t make a change now, it’s not clear he ever will, until he perhaps hears the worst thing he can imagine: Silence at the cash register from a disaffected fan base.
Contact Carlos Monarrez at cmonarrez@freepress.com and follow him on X @cmonarrez.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Spring collapse says it all: Detroit Red Wings must fire Steve Yzerman
Reporting by Carlos Monarrez, Detroit Free Press / Detroit Free Press
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