Steve Yzerman is not a good GM.

[JediOrderPizza]

If you think that the only progress is simply making the playoffs, you're definitely a fan of the right team.

But don't you see if the Wings got one more point and hit 92 points then big success, but 91 points = fire Yzerman ya suck.

 

[BlueSeal]

I feel there are many Wings fans that got spoiled by the Russian influx into the team that contributed to Stanley Cups and (understandably) demand more of that. That situation is unique, and it was very right place/right time. Steve hasn't made great leaps and strides, but he has also kept the team away from handcuffing itself to bad contracts, which shows where his priorities are; he wants to build something lasting, not something for a moment, especially a moment that may amount to nothing.

He's a somewhat cautious and thoughtful GM and that's not a bad thing.

 

[sabremike]

But don't you see if the Wings got one more point and hit 92 points then big success, but 91 points = fire Yzerman ya suck.

*Kevyn Adams Likes This*

 

[John Mandalorian]

The Avs' rebuild started 4 years before the season they finished with 48 points.

This is somewhat disingenuous. When the Avs drafted MacKinnon, they had O’Reilly, Duchene, and Stastny. At the time, it was their intention to keep them. Once it became apparent MacKinnon was more talented than all of them, they were looking to leave on some level.

The 48 pt season was an absolute clarification the Avs needed to remove the congestion above MacKinnon.

 

[13to40]

It's been 5 years for Yzerman, and 8 years overall, there comes a point where the only progress is playoffs, Detroit is at that point, how many years does Yzerman get before you see there has been no progress?

My team was in the same position, they made little to no progress for 5 years and then they fired the guy responsible for that, and now there is a relatively new GM, a brand new coach and we will see what happens.

At some point you have to be held responsible and Yzerman hasn't been It's all excuses.

Your team is watching its best players waste the prime of their careers losing in the first round more often than not. The nucleus of your team is too expensive and this will always be an issue for them gaining proper depth required to win a cup.

Your team was gifted a player of Austin Matthews capability. He’s the best goal scorer in the league and has potential to break records. Detroit didn’t have this luxury. Even the top prospects in the pool aren’t: many aren’t of “super star” potential. More along the line of “very solid, hard nosed players to play against”.

Team is being built differently from yours. Is it the right way vs the leafs being the wrong way? Who knows let’s wait a few years to find out. Should everyone be enraged with Yzerman right about now? No I don’t think so. He’s taking the longer approach on bringing constant success from building within, while managing the cap. If you don’t like him and want to crap on him, wait to see how he handles the Raymond and Seider contracts, because most of us are hoping it’ll be what Dubas wasn’t able to do in Detroit and that was to properly manage the cap and keep the huge AAVs down. Save a 1M or 2M per player and use that to add more depth later down the line when they are ready to take the next step as the leafs are now.

And FYI every year come April I’m one of the few cheering the Leafs on hoping they can bring Canada back a cup, so I’m saying what I’m saying is not coming from a hater of the Leafs.

The Avs went from 48 points to Cup champs in five years. How many more years does Yzerman need?

Very good point.

Having that McKinnon guy really makes a difference, with that finish kid who can really snipe the puck… and a Norris calibre speedster on the back end to move the puck up the ice in a blink of an eye... Avs had amazing luck/drafting years prior to going from 48 points to winning the cup.

The Avs can compete for years to come and will always be a threat after their years of suffering and a 48 point season to get to where they are today.

Detroit hasn’t had the same lottery luck, quality selection of prospects to draft, hence it being labeled a lottery draft.

Some draft classes will always be better or worse, it’s just the way things pan out. Timing and luck are unfortunately key factors. Not to take anything away from amazing pro scouting though, but the two variables I mentioned do play a large part as well.

 

[KingsFan7824]

I mean as an average hockey fan that doesn’t know much about how the team looked when he inherited the GM position, yeah one could say he hasn’t had success because they haven’t made the playoffs.

But then if you dig deeper you can see how the team did not have any stock pile of prospects and regardless of horrible lottery pick luck, still managed to replenish a rather anemic prospect pool.

He isn’t trying to put together a bubble playoff team. He’s building a Stanley cup winning team. Again if you take a bit of a deeper look you can see what he’s trying to accomplish by who he’s been drafting: lots of character guys. Fast. Bigger size….

Is the process taking longer than most hoped? I would agree to the average hockey fan, yes it seems like the team hasn’t been progressing fast enough.

If you check the teams stats over the past few seasons, they have constantly improved while being able to properly develop some of the prospects year after year.

Will the team regress this year? In all honestly this isn’t the roster that’s going to be winning the next cup for the franchise, pending a small miracle, this is the roster to help insulate some of the younger players on the team, while creating the basis of a winning culture styled attitude; being a true pro and allowing some extra time for the younger players not yet on the big team to develop for the new future. So if it regresses…. It’s not the end of the world.

The Walman trade happened because of a locker room altercation that took place during the season. He put himself in a bad position moving forward this year, hence why he was given away. Trading him also created more cap flexibility for signing Stamkos who Detroit was highly rumoured in being interested in.

At the end of the day winning a championship is the ultimate goal, and if you compare Detroit to the majority of the league, they have all won the same amount of cups in the past 10 years. If you look even closer at their division, teams not named Tampa or Florida haven’t had much if any success progressing deep into the playoffs at all.

So at the end of the day I guess the question really comes down to if you’re satisfied as a fan just making the playoffs and losing after a round or maybe 2, or if your goal is a few steps further and less short sighted, of actually winning a Stanley Cup.

You can do this until forever up until they win. Every loss or non-playoff season or bad contract or not so great player is just a step in the long term process that the average fan doesn't quite understand. This is all 7-D chess here people. Then if they actually do win, you can look back and pinpoint each one of those moves as a calculated foreshadowing of what was to come. But if they don't win, he gets fired and everyone forgets what happened.

The whole, well this or that team is building for a Cup, whereas this or that other team is just satisfied with a pedestrian 2nd rd appearance, I don't buy that. That's an easy out for vaguries of team building. That's the hedge against, well, yeah, they didn't win, but their real eye is on that Cup. This bad contract or overpaid trade is just insulating the young guys for a greater good. That might be true, that could be to real motivation, but there's no way of knowing that's actually true. If you win, it's true. If you lose, it's a bad move that never let you win.

 

[Shane Diesel]

The Avs' rebuild started 4 years before the season they finished with 48 points.

What? O'Reilly was long gone and Duchene was traded in the middle of the season. Not to mention Makar wasn't even on the team yet. None of the main pieces from the post-Sakic rebuild were even on the team by 2016.

 

[Ezekial]

This is somewhat disingenuous. When the Avs drafted MacKinnon, they had O’Reilly, Duchene, and Stastny. At the time, it was their intention to keep them. Once it became apparent MacKinnon was more talented than all of them, they were looking to leave on some level.

The 48 pt season was an absolute clarification the Avs needed to remove the congestion above MacKinnon.

Must be nice to have players to trade for other assets.

 

[KingsFan7824]

This is somewhat disingenuous. When the Avs drafted MacKinnon, they had O’Reilly, Duchene, and Stastny. At the time, it was their intention to keep them. Once it became apparent MacKinnon was more talented than all of them, they were looking to leave on some level.

The 48 pt season was an absolute clarification the Avs needed to remove the congestion above MacKinnon.

The Avs team that eventually won the Cup was not built in any sort of conventional rebuild way.

 

[Legion34]

Crazy how he went from the worlds greatest GM to mediocre the second he got out of a no state tax market.

“He stared down stamkos” changed to “he gave 3.4 million to Justin holl” pretty quickly

 

[LEAFANFORLIFE23]

Your team is watching its best players waste the prime of their careers losing in the first round more often than not. The nucleus of your team is too expensive and this will always be an issue for them gaining proper depth required to win a cup.

Your team was gifted a player of Austin Matthews capability. He’s the best goal scorer in the league and has potential to break records. Detroit didn’t have this luxury. Even the top prospects in the pool aren’t: many aren’t of “super star” potential. More along the line of “very solid, hard nosed players to play against”.

Team is being built differently from yours. Is it the right way vs the leafs being the wrong way? Who knows let’s wait a few years to find out. Should everyone be enraged with Yzerman right about now? No I don’t think so. He’s taking the longer approach on bringing constant success from building within, while managing the cap. If you don’t like him and want to crap on him, wait to see how he handles the Raymond and Seider contracts, because most of us are hoping it’ll be what Dubas wasn’t able to do in Detroit and that was to properly manage the cap and keep the huge AAVs down. Save a 1M or 2M per player and use that to add more depth later down the line when they are ready to take the next step as the leafs are now.

And FYI every year come April I’m one of the few cheering the Leafs on hoping they can bring Canada back a cup, so I’m saying what I’m saying is not coming from a hater of the Leafs.

Very good point.

Having that McKinnon guy really makes a difference, with that finish kid who can really snipe the puck… and a Norris calibre speedster on the back end to move the puck up the ice in a blink of an eye... Avs had amazing luck/drafting years prior to going from 48 points to winning the cup.

The Avs can compete for years to come and will always be a threat after their years of suffering and a 48 point season to get to where they are today.

Detroit hasn’t had the same lottery luck, quality selection of prospects to draft, hence it being labeled a lottery draft.

Some draft classes will always be better or worse, it’s just the way things pan out. Timing and luck are unfortunately key factors. Not to take anything away from amazing pro scouting though, but the two variables I mentioned do play a large part as well.

You're right and that was point in the comparison which you seem to have missed.

Dubas made little to no progress, I won't say no progress because he did at least end the series win drought.

But it wasn't NEARLY enough and after 5 years he got fired and a new GM, and new coach were brought in.

I don't know if It's going to work under Treliving and Berube that remains to be seen.

What I do is it didn't work under Dubas, he had 5 years and he didn't do NEARLY enough and it cost him his job and rightly so.

Yzerman has had that same 5 year period, he's done even less.

At what point is he held responsible? At what point do questions at least get asked?

It was said in this thread already but the AVS went from 48 points to cup champs in 5 years.

You can say Detroit doesn't have the best goal scorer in the league and that's true.

But they also didn't start at 48 points.

There is no excuse for where they are.

Yzerman has been bad at his job.

 

[John Mandalorian]

Must be nice to have players to trade for other assets.

That's life. Some times you have to re-align or re-calibrate your window.

 

[13to40]

You can do this until forever up until they win. Every loss or non-playoff season or bad contract or not so great player is just a step in the long term process that the average fan doesn't quite understand. This is all 7-D chess here people. Then if they actually do win, you can look back and pinpoint each one of those moves as a calculated foreshadowing of what was to come. But if they don't win, he gets fired and everyone forgets what happened.

The whole, well this or that team is building for a Cup, whereas this or that other team is just satisfied with a pedestrian 2nd rd appearance, I don't buy that. That's an easy out for vaguries of team building. That's the hedge against, well, yeah, they didn't win, but their real eye is on that Cup. This bad contract or overpaid trade is just insulating the young guys for a greater good. That might be true, that could be to real motivation, but there's no way of knowing that's actually true. If you win, it's true. If you lose, it's a bad move that never let you win.

A lot of the eye sore contracts signed (Chiarot, Copp, Compher, Holl… pick your poison, I probably will agree) are all just place holders. They are character guys who were paid more than their market value to incentivize them to come play for the worst team in the league at the time and help to create a winning culture and teach professionalism to some of the younger players at the time.

When Detroit is a relevant team again, I don’t think many if any of those eye sore contracts will be on the books anymore.

The players weren’t signed with the thought process being: Chiarot and Holl pairing will bring the team to the promise land… it’s insulated younger players with seasoned professionals to help show the younger guys how it’s done and teach them the ropes.

But like you said, there are two sides to view this situation and only time will tell whether it’s been a catastrophe and a waste of time (which I don’t believe) or that the foundation to this franchise has been rebuilt (maybe at a bit of a slower speed than anticipated, but the world pretty much was on pause for the better have of a year during this tenure) and the team is being pushed in the right direction to being a Stanley Cup contender for years to come. Hopefully leading to another 25+ years of playoff success with some rings to show for it.

 

[IWantSakicAsMyGM]

imo I think one of the more underrated reasons why Yzerman was better in Tampa vs Detroit is that it is easier to convince someone to play in warm tax free Florida vs Michigan

In Tampa, he inherited 20 year old Stamkos and Hedman, along with MSL and Lecavalier, and got lucky enough to draft Kucherov at 58OA his second year in the job, got Vasi at 19OA the following year, and Point two years later at 79OA. Seems to me that it's much easier to covince someone to play for your team when you own their rights for the first 7 years after drafting them.

 

[13to40]

You're right and that was point in the comparison which you seem to have missed.

Dubas made little to no progress, I won't say no progress because he did at least end the series win drought.

But it wasn't NEARLY enough and after 5 years he got fired and a new GM, and new coach were brought in.

I don't know if It's going to work under Treliving and Berube that remains to be seen.

What I do is it didn't work under Dubas, he had 5 years and he didn't do NEARLY enough and it cost him his job and rightly so.

Yzerman has had that same 5 year period, he's done even less.

At what point is he held responsible? At what point do questions at least get asked?

It was said in this thread already but the AVS went from 48 points to cup champs in 5 years.

You can say Detroit doesn't have the best goal scorer in the league and that's true.

But they also didn't start at 48 points.

There is no excuse for where they are.

Yzerman has been bad at his job.

Look at both teams prospect pools and drafts leading up to the “5 year plan” vs “Yzerman’s being bad at his job”

One team had super stars drafted (rich prospect pool) and the other had a cookie jar so empty that there weren’t even crumbs left inside of it.

 

[LeighDx59]

That time for the weekly "Yzerman is a bad GM thread" huh?

He came in to an absolute mess left behind by Ken Holland, next to nothing in the pipeline, piss poor lottery luck. Ended up with Seider and Raymond in those drafts. And has still made progress every year he's been back with Detroit. And thats without most of his draft picks making the team yet, because he isnt rushing things. Sure some contracts dont look great right now, but they will expire by the time guys like Kasper or Danielsson or MBN or Cossa makes the team or need raises.

The guy has preached patience since day one, so its weird to me that fans of other teams are so crazy obsessed with the job he's done so far.

 

[Lazlo Hollyfeld]

Crazy how he went from the worlds greatest GM to mediocre the second he got out of a no state tax market.

“He stared down stamkos” changed to “he gave 3.4 million to Justin holl” pretty quickly

Yes because that's the ONLY variable that's different between the two teams.

 

[KingsFan7824]

A lot of the eye sore contracts signed (Chiarot, Copp, Compher, Holl… pick your poison, I probably will agree) are all just place holders. They are character guys who were paid more than their market value to incentivize them to come play for the worst team in the league at the time and help to create a winning culture and teach professionalism to some of the younger players at the time.

When Detroit is a relevant team again, I don’t think many if any of those eye sore contracts will be on the books anymore.

The players weren’t signed with the thought process being: Chiarot and Holl pairing will bring the team to the promise land… it’s insulated younger players with seasoned professionals to help show the younger guys how it’s done and teach them the ropes.

But like you said, there are two sides to view this situation and only time will tell whether it’s been a catastrophe and a waste of time (which I don’t believe) or that the foundation to this franchise has been rebuilt (maybe at a bit of a slower speed than anticipated, but the world pretty much was on pause for the better have of a year during this tenure) and the team is being pushed in the right direction to being a Stanley Cup contender for years to come. Hopefully leading to another 25+ years of playoff success with some rings to show for it.

You don't sign place holders to eye sore contracts though. Literally any veteran who's been around forever can teach a young guy how to be a pro. Does Copp have some kind of revolutionary insight in how to be an NHL player? He's played and had some 3rd line, bordering or low end 2nd line type success. What is he doing that's worth almost $6 in cap space for 5 years?

And honestly. if the goal is decades of contention with a few Cups mixed in there, I would argue that's more unlikely to happen than a 4 year window of true contention with 1 Cup win. What Detroit did from the mid-90's to 2010 or so is ridiculous, and you can't plan for it.

 

[FoxYou727]

In Tampa, he inherited 20 year old Stamkos and Hedman, along with MSL and Lecavalier, and got lucky enough to draft Kucherov at 58OA his second year in the job, got Vasi at 19OA the following year, and Point two years later at 79OA. Seems to me that it's much easier to covince someone to play for your team when you own their rights for the first 7 years after drafting them.

Since 2019 Detroit has gotten in the first round:
Sedier
Edvinssion
ASP
Raymond
Kasper
Danielson
Cossa

They have a nice young core but Yzerman has overpaid for players like Holl, Compher and Chariot

 

[Stephen]

Based on the kind program Steve Yzerman built in Tampa, I would have imagined the Detroit build to have looked more like the young, high octane New Jersey Devils of today than what he's got in Detroit. At the very least, the whole build looks like it's missing that signature Jack Hughes type offensive star in the role of the next Yzerman, to go along with Mo Seider on defense. So stylistically it doesn't seem to be there, and it's missing that star power that you'd expect from a reborn Red Wings program.

That said, I also think the margin between genius and mediocre can be quite thin. For a lot of years it didn't really look like Jim Nill was doing anything particularly noteworthy in Dallas. Until it became apparent he hit on a number of lottery tickets from the 2017 draft and ended up securing Heiskanen, Oettinger and Robertson in one weekend of work. Detroit has bought a lot of lottery tickets over the years. Don't know if it'll all pan out though.

 

[Ezekial]

You're right and that was point in the comparison which you seem to have missed.

Dubas made little to no progress, I won't say no progress because he did at least end the series win drought.

But it wasn't NEARLY enough and after 5 years he got fired and a new GM, and new coach were brought in.

I don't know if It's going to work under Treliving and Berube that remains to be seen.

What I do is it didn't work under Dubas, he had 5 years and he didn't do NEARLY enough and it cost him his job and rightly so.

Yzerman has had that same 5 year period, he's done even less.

At what point is he held responsible? At what point do questions at least get asked?

It was said in this thread already but the AVS went from 48 points to cup champs in 5 years.

You can say Detroit doesn't have the best goal scorer in the league and that's true.

But they also didn't start at 48 points.

There is no excuse for where they are.

Yzerman has been bad at his job.

he did even less in 5 years than the guy who became GM after the Leafs had already drafted Reilly, Matthews, Nylander, and Marner

No shit.

What move could Yzerman have made that turns them into a contender since 2019?
Answer that in earnest and i will admit that Yzerman sucks as a GM.
As far as I'm concerned, as of now, Seider, Raymond, and Edvinsson were solid picks. Does drafting Wyatt Johnston and Logan Stankoven instead of Edvinsson and Buium turn us into a contender? I doubt it.

 

[IWantSakicAsMyGM]

Since 2019 Detroit has gotten in the first round:
Sedier
Edvinssion
ASP
Raymond
Kasper
Danielson
Cossa

They have a nice young core but Yzerman has overpaid for players like Holl, Compher and Chariot

And so far, only Seider and Raymond have played more than 30 NHL games, so they really just have a good group of prospects. This means they still need guys to play in the NHL for the next few years while the prospects develop and and have smartly built the roster by signing the best guys they could get without giving up assets. Would you prefer they trade their picks and prospects for guys who would only be marginally better?

 

[MOGlLNY]

Brutal lottery luck. But he’s been fine, Detroit’s prospect system is solid. Wouldn’t say he’s been fantastic - we’ll see

 

[hurdemz]

In the next couple of years, i think you'll be eating your words.

You think he's not good because it took him almost 5 years to:
disassemble a team
restock picks
draft prospects
add the right vets, AND win playoff series'?

 

[Romang67]

What? O'Reilly was long gone and Duchene was traded in the middle of the season. Not to mention Makar wasn't even on the team yet. None of the main pieces from the post-Sakic rebuild were even on the team by 2016.

MacKinnon and Rantanen were drafted in 2013 and 2015 respectively. Pretending that the Avs rebuilt from scratch after their awful 2016-17 season doesn't hold to scrutiny.