The Detroit Red Wings failed to make the playoffs for the ninth straight year, and general manager Steve Yzerman is looking to snap that drought.
The Red Wings entered the season with hopes of making the playoffs, but that wasn’t the case. After Detroit failed to make the playoffs, Yzerman held his year-end media availability and plans to be aggressive this offseason and wants to add a prominent free agent.
“We’ve kind of felt that all along, we’re going to look at any good player — any player that can help us in any role — if there’s a player worthy of spending whatever amount on, that has an interest in playing in Detroit and fits a need for us, absolutely we would try to do that,” Yzerman said on April 29. “We’re in a different stage than we were maybe five years ago in that we have a good young nucleus of players. And if we can add to that with a prominent free agent, we’d certainly entertain that.”
The most prominent free agent on the market is Mitch Marner, and after that, it would be Nikolaj Ehlers and Brock Boeser. If the Red Wings sign any of them, it would immediately make Detroit a legit playoff contender.
Detroit enters the offseason with just over $21 million in cap space, so the Red Wings have money to make a big move.
Red Wings GM Wants to Get Bigger
Although Yzerman is open to signing a prominent free agent, he does believe the team has other needs.
One need that Yzerman wants is to make the Red Wings get bigger on the ice. Yzerman believes the Red Wings need to be more physical and bigger, and he’ll look to add that in the offseason.
“This team in particular, I think I’d like us to be bigger — although, I shouldn’t say bigger, harder,” Yzerman said. “Because we are pretty big actually. And I think we can demand that out of our own players, but also bring in maybe a different mix.”
Yzerman also believes the Red Wings need more offense, which is where the prominent free agent could come into play.
“We didn’t get enough offense from, say, our bottom-six group, but we also didn’t get enough five-on-five scoring from our top six,” Yzerman said. “So, how do we address that? Try to get better players. Try to make our players better. And demand that our players that are here, that are under contract, that we have high expectations for, they be better.”
Detroit went 39-35-8 last season.
Red Wings Make Coaching Changes
Detroit fired head coach Derek Lalonde mid-season and replaced him with Todd McLellan.
The Red Wings had success with McLellan as the coach, so Yzerman is excited for him to continue as the coach. But, Detroit would move on from goaltending coach Alex Westlund and video coach L.J. Scarpace.
“Those are significant roles, those are important people in our organization and those were really good people,” McLellan said. “I talked about our staff and how they fit in. It’s sometimes not a reflection on the job they do, but just something that we needed to do in the coaches’ room to stir things up. We need better goaltending, and that’s not just on Alex Westlund.
“That’s on the goaltenders, the head coach and everybody else that’s involved in it. And as far as the video goes, we’ll likely look at promoting from within. That hasn’t been confirmed yet, but we also want some growth within the organization when people are capable of accepting more. And as we move forward throughout the summer, we’ll fill those two spots.”
McLellan went 26-18-4 as the head coach of the Red Wings.
Red Wings GM Hints at Signing ‘Prominent Free Agent’ in Offseason