Steve Yzerman's Detroit Problem Started Above and Beside Him

In the post-mortem of Yzerman’s Detroit era, we need to look at what went right in Tampa.

It was a disastrous offseason for the Detroit Red Wings.

Their captain, Dylan Larkin, requested a trade, a request that may or may not still stand, and eventually had his captaincy stripped away. The Red Wings most iconic captain, and then general manager, Steve Yzerman, left his post on July 15 after seven seasons without a playoff appearance.

The search for Yzerman’s replacement was shrouded in mystery, and on the eve of training camp, without a full-time GM in place, the Red Wings named Shawn Horcoff the interim general manager.

On top of that, Simon Edvinsson, a restricted free agent without a contract that attended training camp on a PTO to make sure he was part of the team, has returned to Sweden without a contract and is skating with Frolunda while the Red Wings prepare for opening night on Friday.

It’s a mess. Plain and simple.

So how did we get here? How did we get to a spot where the Red Wings, one of the NHL’s iconic franchises, are a bit of a laughing stock right now?

People around the league have been willing to talk more since Yzerman stepped down, so I’ve had conversations with other NHL executives, agents, and players over the past few months to try and get a read on why things didn’t work for Yzerman in Detroit.

And based off my conversations, there are two key takeaways.

1. Yzerman was too much of a safety net for Chris Ilitch, too much of a public shield.

2. Yzerman didn’t have his Detroit version of Julien BriseBois.

These things are related, but I think the best way to explain what failed in Detroit for Yzerman is to explain what worked for him when he was in the same role for the Tampa Bay Lightning.

In Tampa, Yzerman had a very public-facing owner in Jeffrey Vinik. Vinik isn’t afraid to be a public-facing figure, I’ve spoken to him on the phone multiple times for stories, and he’s a big believer public accountability, including for himself.

While there was an air of secrecy about things in Tampa from Yzerman’s demeanor, which is fine, there was still a public trust in the community when the owner is willing to be more of a “man of the people.”

Chris Ilitch has been the complete opposite, his public-facing comments have been carefully chosen, and he hasn’t been subject to an actual media interview since he attended Derek Lalonde’s introductory press conference in 2022 and spoke with reporters from a podium

Since then Ilitch has been a ghost, even when he’s been part of public-facing comments, like the PWHL events that Detroit has hosted, any requests to speak with him, which I’ve made through Red Wings PR, have been denied.

Ilitch is also making money, the business is still booming, winning and losing aren’t impacting the bottom line enough. Ilitch has happily allowed Yzerman to be the front of the Red Wings organization, for better or worse.

This is where Yzerman’s lack of his Detroit-version of BriseBois became even more detrimental.

In Tampa, BriseBois pushed and internally battled Yzerman. As one source put it, BriseBois wasn’t afraid to battle Yzerman and that attitude led to mutual respect, where the Lightning GM had a right-hand man he trusted to protect him and advise him.

Yzerman never had that in Detroit.

Yzerman arrived as a larger-than-life figure, someone who’s playing career overshadowed anything and everyone in the organization, and with so many former players, that Yzerman captained, on staff, no one ever challenged the general manager.

Yzerman didn’t ask for advice, and he tried to do so many things himself. It’s too big of a job for one person, and without someone on staff, like he had in BriseBois in Tampa, pushing and challenging for a bigger piece of the pie, Yzerman was basically acting alone in many factors.

One agent told me that when Yzerman was in Tampa, there was mutual respect for contract negotiations between both Yzerman and BriseBois. In Detroit, the agent said he never spoke to anyone other than Yzerman, no matter how big or small the deal was.

In fact, Yzerman’s demeanor and downfall in Detroit, is something I’ve been told that other GMs have taken notice of and learned lessons from. Mathieu Darche, the New York Islanders GM, for example, hired Evan Gold, one source said, because he wanted an assistant GM that wasn’t afraid to push him and challenge him.