Why the Red Wings’ March Struggles Don’t Hurt Steve Yzerman’s Job Security

I think it's important to bring some context to what's been happening this March in Detroit

Twenty days ago, after morning skate before the Detroit Red Wings played the Florida Panthers, I asked Todd McLellan about his team and the month of March.

It’s no secret in Detroit, that March has left some sour memories for the fanbase over the past four seasons. In fact, if not for some of those sour memories from two and three years ago, McLellan probably never would have even been brought in to coach the Red Wings.

"Well I can tell you I haven’t walked into the locker room and stood in front of the group and said, hey four years ago this happened, and only you three were here for that. And now let’s go three years ago and only you six were here for that,” McLellan said. “It’s not about that, this is about our own group our own story, our own path. And we aren’t talking about it, we are gonna go play hockey. In April, May, June, even July when you wanna write this story, you can come back and look at it and it’s gonna fit one way or the other, so I can help all of you write it because I’ll have lived it. If it’s the March thing I’ll be right there writing it with you, if it’s hey didn’t happen then it didn’t happen. But let this team have its own run at history and not drag them into it, that’s how we are approaching it.”

Twenty days since that statement, the Red Wings have posted a 3-5-1 record. They dropped a depressingly bad loss to the Ottawa Senators on Tuesday at home, another old ghost resurfacing, and entering Thursday are sitting outside the playoff picture by one point in the Eastern Conference.

The playoffs are still very viable, but the chances have taken a big hit and according to MoneyPuck the Red Wings now have a 42.4 chance of making the postseason.

Naturally this has led to some pretty extreme reaction within the Red Wings fanbase and the Detroit market. If you monitor social media and sports radio — always a dangerous thing — you’ll hear a hurting fanbase that was roped in by hope and now have seemingly accepted that they’ll be another playoff gut punch, especially after the loss to the Senators.

It’s also led to larger public conversation both in and out of Detroit about the future for Steve Yzerman, who’s personal seven-season playoff drought as general manager is the longest in the league, and brings up the very fair point that his playing career and status as a franchise icon — No. 19, the captain, etc…. — are perhaps the only reason he wasn’t fired after five or six seasons without a playoff series.

I think that’s important context to bring up before we dive into some deeper points here, because I think that we often paint all GMs with the same brush, that everyone should and shouldn’t be judged by the same criteria — whether they’ve won the Stanley Cup or not.

And it’s funny, because Yzerman is one of the few GMs that can actually be judged by that criteria. His job in Detroit is to win a Stanley Cup during his tenure, nothing else really matters, and while a playoff series would be nice, a couple first-round losses aren’t going to do anything for Yzerman or his bosses, the Ilitch family.

In fact, even during the playoff drought the Red Wings business has boomed. The team’s valuation increased by 20 percent year-over-year according to CNBC, the Red Wings are now worth $2.47 billion according to their projections, and I’ve had NHL executives tell me that number is heavily undershooting how much the team would actually sell for if the iconic brand was ever actually put up for sale.

The Red Wings, despite their win-loss struggles, have also been one of the NHL’s top revenue teams during all of this, consistently finishing in the top-10 of league earners, which mean they actually contribute to revenue sharing to the rest of the league.

Again, it’s funny, the Red Wings being bad is actually worse for the NHL overall business than it is for the Ilitches themselves in some ways.

While a team like the Dallas Stars, which I also know extremely well, has put an emphasis on postseason appearances for revenue and brand purposes, the Red Wings will always matter in the NHL landscape, particularly as a business asset.

So Yzerman isn’t getting the pressure to make the playoffs to improve the financial bottom line for his bosses, which is why he’s been able to make decisions, in his view, that only work toward the long-term goal of winning the Stanley Cup at some point and doing so with home-grown drafted and developed talent.

And even with some eroded trust and frustration from the fan base, the Red Wings and Yzerman are well aware there’s 100 years of history that will bring any dissenting fans back into the fold, and if his long-term plan works, all of the seasons lost in no-man’s land will have been worth it.

I think it’s important to write about this, not to defend Yzerman or the Red Wings, but to understand the reality of the situation. They might make the playoffs — and I really hope they do because my life would be more enjoyable with some local playoff hockey — but whether they do or not, the internal review and discussion from the very top will be asking Yzerman “is the long-term goal still in play?” and if the answer from the GM is still “yes,” then nothing is going to change with his employment.

On top of this, the Red Wings also live in a weirdly perfect bubble where they can rest below the surface in a town that at it’s core is more concerned about the Detroit Lions than the local hockey team, a luxury I’m sure the Toronto Maple Leafs wish they had.

So while we are letting this Red Wings team have it’s own run at March history, and we will learn a lot in the next three games, it’s not a history that really matters as much in the long-term prognostication for the owners, even if it means everything right now to Red Wings fans.