Steve Yzerman did not deserve to keep his job as the Red Wings’ general manager after seven years of rebuilding failure that had made little progress since he took over in April 2019.
Before the 2025-26 season started, I wrote that Yzerman should be fired if the Wings didn’t make the playoffs. When they didn’t, I wrote that Yzerman should indeed be fired.
But when the NHL draft came and went in late June, followed closely by the start of NHL free agency, it seemed certain Yzerman was safe.
So the team’s announcement Wednesday, July 15, that Yzerman would no longer be the Wings’ GM came as a shock because of the strange timing. His effective firing had to be the decision of owner Chris Ilitch, who still made sure to give one of the Wings’ most revered icons a soft landing as a team senior adviser.
It’s hard to see Yzerman, a famously strong-willed, driven, competitive player and executive who could be critical of his own players, choosing to walk away from a job he consistently and defiantly sought to keep.
When I asked him in April 2025 if he should be on the hot seat and if he deserved to keep his job if the Wings missed the playoffs the next spring, this was his answer: “Well, that’s not necessarily for me to answer, and I don’t do my job worrying about whether I’m on the hot seat or not. That’s your job, you know? And to be honest with you, I don’t really care what you think, with all due respect.”
Those are the words of a man who believes in his mission. For whatever else you might say about Yzerman as a GM, you have to understand he was doggedly determined to succeed.
Ironically, Yzerman himself may have played the biggest role in losing his job because he couldn’t manage his most important relationship − the one with captain Dylan Larkin, which came to a head when they met shortly after the season.
The last straw
According to a person with knowledge of the situation who was not authorized to speak publicly, the two men had a relationship that had grown increasingly strained with mounting losses. Yzerman was frustrated with a captain who wasn’t playing at a higher level and doing enough leading, while Larkin was frustrated with a GM who preferred to trade away good players instead of acquiring significant help.
Yzerman and Larkin met often in Yzerman’s office at Little Caesars Arena. The frustration came to a head during their final meeting shortly after the season ended when both men arrived ready to air grievances. But Yzerman was far more aggressive in his criticism of Larkin and “just tore him apart,” according to a person with knowledge of the meeting.
Not long after that meeting, Larkin requested a trade, agreeing to waive his no-trade clause for three teams: the Vegas Golden Knights, the Minnesota Wild and the Florida Panthers.
The trade request from Larkin, a quintessential homegrown star who grew up in Waterford and played at Michigan, was seen as an indictment of Yzerman’s leadership and his stewardship of an organizational rebuild that just passed the decade mark.
In the two weeks since NHL free agency began and when the market should have been its hottest for Larkin, there was no hint of a potential trade in the works. At a news conference during the draft, Yzerman only briefly addressed the trade request and seemed to have little interest meeting Larkin’s demands, while pointing out he had five years left on his eight-year, $69.9 million contract.
“My job as the manager of the Detroit Red Wings is always to do what is in the best interest of the Detroit Red Wings, and I will act accordingly to that,” Yzerman said. “I cannot make any guarantees, or did not make any guarantees, that that request could or would be met.”
After speaking with people inside and outside the organization who are familiar with its workings, I found no consensus for why Yzerman was removed at such an inopportune time, with the draft and the crux of free agency over.
But since I was right when I called for the Wings to trade Larkin last year and I was right about the need to fire (or remove, transition, whatever) Yzerman, I’ll take a stab at why this move was made.
Why Steve Yzerman is not GM anymore
I believe Yzerman essentially lost a power struggle with Larkin. If Yzerman wasn’t getting trade offers with great value, meaning top-line starters, he probably would have been happy to let Larkin stew in Detroit. As a bonus, Larkin would receive the punishment of facing teammates he was ready to turn his back on, as well as a massive media contingent in September during training camp, which is moving from Traverse City to LCA.
It would be a public-relations nightmare that only Ilitch could resolve by siding with Larkin. He could either do this by asking Larkin what it would take for him to rescind his trade request − which might just have been Yzerman’s removal. Or he could ask Yzerman to appease Larkin and trade him quickly for whatever prospects he could get.
It’s not too hard to imagine Ilitch taking the expedient road. He’s not a hockey guy – at all. But he’s definitely a business guy. And with interest flagging among a fan base frustrated by the “Yzerplan,” Ilitch threw the angry mob some red meat.
A few hours later, the good folks at Olympia Sports + Entertainment by pure coincidence sent out a thinly veiled “ding-dong, the witch is dead” email announcing a one-day sale for home-opener tickets.
Another theory I heard was that this all could have been Yzerman’s decision − because maybe he’d had enough of the team’s dysfunction and the growing sentiment that the Wings are a stepchild to the Tigers. Maybe he’d just had enough. Everyone has their breaking point.
But that kind of voluntary retreat would be a side of Yzerman no one’s ever seen, and it seems as unlikely as the thought of seeing much of Yzerman anywhere at all anytime soon in Detroit.
Contact Carlos Monarrez at cmonarrez@freepress.com and follow him on X @cmonarrez.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Steve Yzerman clashed with Dylan Larkin. Did Red Wings side with player?
Reporting by Carlos Monarrez, Detroit Free Press / Detroit Free Press
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Carlos Monarrez, Detroit Free Press | USA TODAY Network
