Getty Images Detroit Red Wings long-time general manager Steve Yzerman
Don’t stop believing, Red Wings fans. Five years into Steve Yzerman’s rebuild of the Detroit Red Wings, and the team’s chances of making the playoffs, even just as a wild card, remain in doubt.
With only 19 games remaining, the Wings are fighting with Tampa, Yzerman’s former team, and a handful of others for a wildcard spot in the Eastern division. Given their woeful recent play, hopes are dimming fast.
Yet at the NHL trade deadline, Yzerman did nothing to improve the Wings chances this year. For a team that hasn’t made the playoffs since the 2016 season, Yzerman’s lack of dealing at the trade deadline left anxious fans baffled.
The Yzerman Legend
Yzerman is an NHL legend, twice over. Maybe three times, if you count his work as both a player and executive with Team Canada.
Yzerman was drafted by the Detroit Red Wings in 1983, and played all 22 seasons with the team. Widely considered one of the all-time NHL greats, Yzerman was named Captain in 1986, at age 21. With Yzerman at the helm, the Red Wings won three Stanley Cup trophies. In 2010, Yzerman left the Red Wing family to become the General Manager of the upstart Tampa Bay Lightning. His second legend began.
Through a series of astute drafts, and masterful trades, Yzerman transformed Tampa into a perennial winner. Between 2004-2022, Tampa has appeared in five Stanley Cup finals, winning three.
Yzerman was named the General Manager and Executive Vice President of the Detroit Red Wings in 2019. Fans were ecstatic. The hometown hockey hero and now proven builder of Stanley Cup champions was headed back to Detroit.
Sadly, the promise of Yzerman’s return has yet to materialize.
Not only have the Wings not won a Stanley Cup, nor made it to the finals, the team has failed to even make the playoffs every year under Yzerman’s leadership. With the prospect of making it to the playoffs this year slipping away, fans were hopeful of a blockbuster trade. But instead of taking a shot at the trade deadline, Yzerman shocked Red Wings fans by, essentially, dumping the puck.
Yzerman, long considered a fearsome deal maker, acquired defenseman Radim Simek from the San Jose Sharks, who he then immediately shipped off to the team’s AHL club. As part of the deal, Yzerman also sent Klim Kostin, who rarely saw any action, to the New Jersey Devils in exchange for a seventh-round draft pick, clearing up a bit of cap space. Moves that, at best, will supplement future Red Wings teams — but do little to nothing for this season.
Has the team given up?
Red Wings Were ‘Mostly Quiet’ at the Trade Deadline
Fighting to make the playoffs as a wildcard, Yzerman was “mostly quiet,” as the Red Wings officially put it. Adding that “Executive Vice President and General Manager Steve Yzerman expressed confidence in the club’s current roster and belief that key reinforcements will come from within the organization.”
With just 19 games remaining, “key reinforcements” from “within the organization” offers little hope to long-suffering Detroit Red Wings fans.
The Detroit Red Wings are one of the most storied franchises in NHL history. An Original 6 team that has found success in every decade. Sadly, however, they have now not been back to the NHL playoffs since the 2016 season — an eternity in sports. Worse, their chances of finally making it back to the playoffs this year may be slipping away.
Curiously, Yzerman appears to be under no pressure to do anything about this. Following the trade deadline, Yzerman admitted as much, stating “if and when we make the playoffs.” The team responded to the trade deadline news by losing 0-4 to the perennial basement-dwelling Arizona Coyotes.
LGRW.
To his credit, Yzerman had previously brought in an aging but still mega-talented Patrick Kane, along with the always-dangerous Alex DeBrincat. There’s still a chance this year’s team makes the playoffs, finally. If they don’t, Yzerman’s refusal to deal at the NHL trade deadline deserves the blame. Another lost year for Detroit Red Wings fans is very possible.