What do you think of Yzerman these days?

[norrisnick]

I went with good gm, the stuff I mostly complain about doesn't actually matter when it comes to the rebuild.

I feel like this team is building up for a big move eventually tho.

Do you hold the belief, that once the roster is closer to being ready, Yzerman will find a proper coaching staff?

 

[Rzombo4 prez]

Do you hold the belief, that once the roster is closer to being ready, Yzerman will find a proper coaching staff?

I am curious as to what you were expecting exactly. He had a long road to the playoffs when he took over this team. Given the average tenure of NHL coaches, anyone he hired wasn't likely to be here when we started to compete for the playoffs. It is hard to see Lalonde (or anyone else we would have hired) as anything more than a placeholder. The sustainable improvements will come primarily through improved talent, not coaching. I think there will be a time when we should be super picky about coaching. I don't, however, think we are anywhere close to that though.

He wants Cooper. If he doesn't extend in Tampa, my money says we take a run at him.

 

[norrisnick]

I am curious as to what you were expecting exactly. He had a long road to the playoffs when he took over this team. Given the average tenure of NHL coaches, anyone he hired wasn't likely to be here when we started to compete for the playoffs. It is hard to see Lalonde (or anyone else we would have hired) as anything more than a placeholder. The sustainable improvements will come primarily through improved talent, not coaching. I think there will be a time when we should be super picky about coaching. I don't, however, think we are anywhere close to that though.

He wants Cooper. If he doesn't extend in Tampa, my money says we take a run at him.

Not much different to be quite honest. However, it never hurts to start with systems early. And as of now, the systems being deployed are trash.

Place holder coaches, like place holder players are a thing. But you should try to at least have something competitive strategy wise.

 

[The Real Pastafarian]

I went with "OK GM" -- I would have went more positive, but: Walman.

That Walman deal is just inexplicable to me. Unless one of you guys can explicate that f*cking thing for me.

Gave him away for nothing. Nothing. He didn't make enough to be a cap dump. Played well enough at that salary that he should actually have been worth a late first round pick.

Other than that, I think things are going fine. I liked Daniel Sprong, despite his unfortunate hairline. Dude put up points. But OK, maybe he's not great at back-checking, let's get more well-rounded.

Oh but then we re-sign Kane, who gives zero f*cks about backchecking and glides around looking for scoring chances in the same way that a 4000 pound white shark looks for loose bloody chunks of whale blubber bobbing about in the sea foam. Awesome, much consistent, very discipline (insert pic of Shiba Inu here.)

But whatevs. Let's give Kane a full season. Worst case we trade him and Veleno at the deadline to an actually contending team desperate to upgrade their PP and fourth line center for that first rounder that we should have received for Walman.

F*ck. Is it too late to change my vote to "Terrible GM, fire him"?

 

[JediOrderPizza]

Do you hold the belief, that once the roster is closer to being ready, Yzerman will find a proper coaching staff?

If the defense is still atrocious then yes, I do believe other teams with less have done more.

If Ed is a top pairing guy or at least Kronwall level, Seider and Ed playing 20+ mins a night should be an above average defense, not bottom 10 like it has been the past two seasons. I know goaltending doesn't help but I think most of us have watched enough games to know the defensive structure is a problem.

I don't have a big issue with Chiarot but boy I am not exactly excited to watch that pairing again.

 

[Air Budd Dwyer]

He's doing a great job. 1st round drafting looks to be good. He's not hamstringing the team with bad trades or bad long term contracts.

I think people overvalue Walman quite a bit. He's ok offensively, plays mediocre defense, and dances like a 12 year old when he scores. And I abhor the Minnesota Vikings so paying homage to one of their players by copying his dance will make me detest you. Lovely, move on.

The Holl, Chiarot, and Copp contracts are a bit overpriced and you can argue Compher's is as well. But remember, Detroit has been a bad team. Usually, you have to pay a bad team tax to players in free agency. Players aren't taking discounts right now to come play for a bottom feeding to bubble team.

 

[RabidBadger]

Other than that, I think things are going fine. I liked Daniel Sprong, despite his unfortunate hairline. Dude put up points. But OK, maybe he's not great at back-checking, let's get more well-rounded.

Oh but then we re-sign Kane, who gives zero f*cks about backchecking....

Honest question: do you really think Kane and Sprong are on equal footing in terms of players worth retaining?

 

[Retire91]

Do you hold the belief, that once the roster is closer to being ready, Yzerman will find a proper coaching staff?

I think there is two phases to that, first phase is what does the coaching staff look like with a roster that doesn't have holes. If it's not looking great then phase 2. I don't think he got a temporary coach he wants to see if he can do it. Coach cooper had a lot more to work with when he stepped in.

 

[lidstromiscool]

1st round drafting: Great to elite. Worst lottery luck in the NHL and he still came away with Raymond/Seider who are studs. Edvinsson's hockey IQ might hold him back but he will play in the NHL for a long time. Kasper and Danielson don't have the highest ceilings but both should play in the NHL. Even Cossa seems to be turning it around.
2nd-7th round drafting: bottom 5 in the league, maybe bottom 2 if you account for number of picks wasted. Tons of high 2nds/3rds and not much to show for it.
Free Agency: average to below average (Holl, Chiarot, Copp drop this grade)
Trades: Average to above average. Some good deals, some bad.

If the goal is to build a perennial cup contending team, I don't see how you can look at the roster and prospect pool going into year 6 and objectively say he's been a great GM.

 

[Henkka]

2nd-7th round drafting: bottom 5 in the league, maybe bottom 2 if you account for number of picks wasted. Tons of high 2nds/3rds and not much to show for it.

Do you have some statistical proof and confirmation for this versus other organizations?

 

[DanielMarois]

He has been great at the draft, especially the first round .Everything else is pretty average.

 

[The Real Pastafarian]

Honest question: do you really think Kane and Sprong are on equal footing in terms of players worth retaining?

No, I don't really think that. Kane > Sprong.

Kane has way more production than Sprong, though, partly because of the minutes differential. So I probably don't consider the difference between the two as large as you do.

I don't know if Kane is a net positive at all in 5-on-5, despite all his point production. The other team seems to score a lot of points too when Kane is out there. Kane is definitely a net positive on the PP. That's why we could flip him at the deadline for some real value.

I don't have time to look it up right now, but didn't we have a better record without Kane? Now, some of those games we lost, we were missing Larkin; but we were missing him because Ottawa didn't fear our PP, even with Kane, and they were willing to cross-check him in the neck. So...what's the use of having Kane then? We'd have been better off with a face puncher instead. Maybe we went after the wrong Kane.

 

[PajamaBoy]

Better not lock this thread. I want the same energy the whole time from some of you couch potato GM's.

 

[PajamaBoy]

Two people have voted bad. Why?

Because they rebuilt the Redwings faster on NHL 2024.

 

[PajamaBoy]

Henkka's post needs to be stickied.

Team has improved every year.

Season 2024-25 - ?? points
Season 2023-24 - 91 points
Season 2022-23 - 80 points
Season 2021-22 - 74 points
Season 2020-21 - 48 points
Season 2019-20 - 39 points

I could argue, that the team direction is right - not wrong.

End of the day we have barely seen any of his prospects really impact team. Seider Raymond and now Eds in.... All look great. When they start trickling in it should lead to a much deeper and more competitive club. The ones moaning are probably the ones that run their mouths on the public section prematurely. That 9 game losing streak was bad but probably was hell for the wings fans who wrote cheques they couldn't cash lol. If ur in that crowd u deserve what u got.

The rest sound stupid as f***. They would give hanafin 49 mill over 7 years but moan about 25 mill over 5 for a guy like computer. Lolol you do realize the guys he signs have a certain level they can't get past so when his prospects make the jump they look at guys like holl, copp and compher and think hey I'll easily take that guys spot in a year. You bring In a guy like hanafin give him 7 mill which means seider minimum asks for 10. Then u can throw out wage structure out the window. Crying about holl and copp when they will be gone when our core group will be graduated is so short sighted.

 

[izlez]

2nd-7th round drafting: bottom 5 in the league, maybe bottom 2 if you account for number of picks wasted. Tons of high 2nds/3rds and not much to show for it.

I'd really love to see this ranking in full to justify this opinion

 

[norrisnick]

I'd really love to see this ranking in full to justify this opinion

Here's the list of players from the 2019 draft on that have come out of the 2nd round and beyond and done something. The left most column is where they were picked. And in parentheses is who the Wings picked ahead of said players (not counting the first round). I sorted the drafts by games played, so that's the order.

2019 150+ GP
40 - Vancouver Canucks - Nils Hoglander - (Tuomisto)
33 - Los Angeles Kings - Arthur Kaliyev - (no pick before)
91 - Washington Capitals - Aliaksei Protas - (Tuomisto, Mastrosimone, Albert Johansson, Grewe)
98 - Arizona Coyotes - Matias Maccelli - (Tuomisto, Mastrosimone, Albert Johansson, Grewe, Phillips)
56 - Washington Capitals - Brett Leason - (Tuomisto, Mastrosimone)
125 - Ottawa Senators - Mark Kastelic - (Tuomisto, Mastrosimone, Albert Johansson, Grewe, Phillips)

2020 100+ GP
34 - Buffalo Sabres - JJ Peterka - (Wallinder)
167 - Colorado Avalanche - Nils Aman - (Wallinder, Niederbach, Hanas, Sebrango, Viro, Stange, Bednar, Cotton, Aucoin)
42 - Nashville Predators - Luke Evangelista - (Wallinder)

2021 50+ GP
60 - Arizona Coyotes - JJ Moser - (Buium)
57 - Toronto Maple Leafs - Matthew Knies - (Buium)

2022 25+ GP
54 - Boston Bruins - Matthew Poitras - (James, Buchelnikov)

2023 1+ GP
34 - Columbus Blue Jackets - Gavin Brindley - (no pick before)

 

[Frk It]

Here's the list of players from the 2019 draft on that have come out of the 2nd round and beyond and done something. The left most column is where they were picked. And in parentheses is who the Wings picked ahead of said players (not counting the first round). I sorted the drafts by games played, so that's the order.

2019 150+ GP
40 - Vancouver Canucks - Nils Hoglander - (Tuomisto)
33 - Los Angeles Kings - Arthur Kaliyev - (no pick before)
91 - Washington Capitals - Aliaksei Protas - (Tuomisto, Mastrosimone, Albert Johansson, Grewe)
98 - Arizona Coyotes - Matias Maccelli - (Tuomisto, Mastrosimone, Albert Johansson, Grewe, Phillips)
56 - Washington Capitals - Brett Leason - (Tuomisto, Mastrosimone)
125 - Ottawa Senators - Mark Kastelic - (Tuomisto, Mastrosimone, Albert Johansson, Grewe, Phillips)

2020 100+ GP
34 - Buffalo Sabres - JJ Peterka - (Wallinder)
167 - Colorado Avalanche - Nils Aman - (Wallinder, Niederbach, Hanas, Sebrango, Viro, Stange, Bednar, Cotton, Aucoin)
42 - Nashville Predators - Luke Evangelista - (Wallinder)

2021 50+ GP
60 - Arizona Coyotes - JJ Moser - (Buium)
57 - Toronto Maple Leafs - Matthew Knies - (Buium)

2022 25+ GP
54 - Boston Bruins - Matthew Poitras - (James, Buchelnikov)

2023 1+ GP
34 - Columbus Blue Jackets - Gavin Brindley - (no pick before)

Can't speak for everyone, but my criticism is more a "I think we could have maximized our draft capital more" thing not a "our drafting sucks" thing.

(This is also reflected by most in the poll at hand. You have 76/102 people voting they think he is doing good, great, or a star GM.)

By my count we have had 24 top 75 picks from 2019 to 2023. We also have had five top 10 picks since Yzerman took over. So one hand, we have a top prospect pool. On another hand, we probably should have a top prospect pool. Yzerman deserves credit for finding ways to add some picks and hitting on some top picks so far, no doubt.

With the amount of picks we had, I think we could have afforded to take some higher level swings on players. I think our drafting has been pretty conservative the last few years. (Seider pick was anything but conservative and the Raymond pick carried some risk too... so not all bad).

That is kind of what it boils down to for me. I also will acknowledge that drafting in round 2 and beyond is incredibly difficult, and even the higher upside options I think are out there very often bust too.

 

[norrisnick]

Can't speak for everyone, but my criticism is more a "I think we could have maximized our draft capital more" thing not a "our drafting sucks" thing.

(This is also reflected by most in the poll at hand. You have 76/102 people voting they think he is doing good, great, or a star GM.)

By my count we have had 24 top 75 picks from 2019 to 2023. We also have had five top 10 picks since Yzerman took over. So one hand, we have a top prospect pool. On another hand, we probably should have a top prospect pool. Yzerman deserves credit for finding ways to add some picks and hitting on some top picks so far, no doubt.

With the amount of picks we had, I think we could have afforded to take some higher level swings on players. I think our drafting has been pretty conservative the last few years. (Seider pick was anything but conservative and the Raymond pick carried some risk too... so not all bad).

That is kind of what it boils down to for me. I also will acknowledge that drafting in round 2 and beyond is incredibly difficult, and even the higher upside options I think are out there very often bust too.

I mean, do you throw a handful of darts and hope for the best, or try and flip those all into one big dart? With the absolute dearth of prospects in the pipeline when he came on board, I'm fine with the swing as many times as you can approach. Now... I'd probably look more into asset consolidation. I probably would have for the '23 draft as well, but '19 and '20 just coming in, pick as many kids as you can. But it's hard to turn a bucket full of loose change into meaningful currency. You need a trade partner.

 

[dalem177]

I went with "good, but" because that's as close as I can get to "I love having him as the GM even though I'm not sure how good of a GM he is yet". I am not a stats-based fan, so tallying the spreadsheet doesn't mean much to me - having the team captain I watched as I turned into a hockey fan and Wings fan as the boss? That means a LOT to me.

Same reason I roll my eyes at the idea of trading Larkin. Even if you showed me on paper that it would a good hockey move I wouldn't want it to happen. I want Larks to have 19 years as captain too. (Also wouldn't mind a couple more cups in that time, either )

Do I want the Wings to spend the next 10 years being the bridesmaid and never the bride? No I do not. Do I think Stevie Y can get them over that hump? Yes I do.

 

[SirloinUB]

I honestly agree that in general I haven't loved Draper's drafting. Our best picks have come from Europe, and while he's the overall head of scouting, I have to imagine that he's more involved in NA where we seem to do worse. I also don't like how much the players we take seem to play the way Draper did. Often the players he champions in draft interviews are my least favorite picks for that year.

I don't think Yzerman has him there because he's his friend though. Yzerman also really likes players of Draper's ilk. We also have to give Draper credit for saying "Yep, Hakan wants this guy that I'm a little less familiar with, take your shot" if we're going to praise the results from our Euro scouting. He's also been a big proponent of some successes following his mold (Bertuzzi and Mazur). Most of his picks need more time before they can be summarily dismissed.

Essentially, I also don't love Draper but I think his track record makes him a justifiable choice. His mentality matches Stevie Y's really well and thus I think he's sticking around. I think it has very little to do with nepotism. Man would I love to get Al Murray somehow.

I don't think Draper was as uninvolved with drafting of the Euros as some are making it, especially the first rounders. Take these old quotes from Raymond's draft year and you quickly glean that Draper was as big a fan of Raymond as anyone.

Detroit director of amateur scouting Kris Draper once described watching Raymond score a hat trick in the U18 World Championship gold medal game, rising to the moment, and how much that performance meant. “To me, it means a lot, when you’re sitting there, you’re 17 years old, you’re playing in your home country in front of your home fans, and all of the sudden you raise your level, you raise your level of compete and the way you play and you rise to the occasion in a big game,” Draper said. “That puts a smile on your face when you’re watching it. … For me, you love big-game players, you love players that are able to elevate their play when the game is on the line, and when the game means the most.

“And going back to that gold medal game … that’s exactly what Lucas Raymond did, and it was impressive.”

Further:

“I think every time we went and watched him play and came away from watching him play, there was a lot of comments amongst our group of just how smart of a hockey player he was,” said Red Wings director of amateur scouting Kris Draper. “And I think that’s something that is very high on our list of prospects that we want to draft — we want to be obviously a smart, intelligent, competitive team, and we think Lucas Raymond has a lot of those qualities that we certainly look for in a prospect.”

It's a similar story with Seider. The following quotes are from Draper at Sieder's first prospect tournament

• "He’s a smart player, and he plays the game with his head up. In the transition game, you have to move it right away, and he sees the ice really well. And the one thing I’ve noticed is how hard he passes the puck. For an 18-year-old kid, he snaps his passes. Our player development guys, Shawn Horcoff and Dan Cleary, that’s something they talk to the younger guys about, passing the puck harder. And Moritz gets it. When he sees it, he snaps that puck.”
• "Any 18-year-old defenseman has to continue to improve on defense. Sometimes physically, he gets into a battle with players that are four, five, six years older and that’s when he puts himself in a bit of trouble. But he obviously has a good build (6-foot-4), and you know he’s going to get stronger.”
• "We think he's a very good skater. With his position, there’s a need for mobility and definitely off-the-rush defending. He has good feet and good awareness. When you can get back to pucks quick, it’s going to help on breakouts.”
• "The first game (in Traverse City) he took a pretty good shot (high hit) from Kirby Dach, and we thought he responded well. Everyone was wondering how that would go. He stayed on the bench, talked to the trainer, and you could see a little fire there. He wanted to get back on the ice, and that’s something you love to see.”
• "When you're a smart player with hockey sense and vision, you’re going to be able to make that good first pass. A couple times under pressure, he has shown the ability to make that little pop-out play, which is a huge asset going forward to be a high-end NHL defenseman.”
• "We like the way he shoots and it comes back to his footwork, how he walks the blueline. He has some deception with the puck and he does a real nice job getting pucks to the net.”

Draper liked these prospects himself and as Director of Amateur Scouting, was very involved with scouting them and making them Detroit Red Wings draft picks.

This whole narrative of a "Hakan pick" or a "Draper pick" isn't how this stuff works in real life. It is all collaborative.

 

[Retire91]

I think when you look at Yzerman's drafting with the lightning he nailed the later round picks and wiffed almost 100% in the first round with Vasilevskiy as the exception and as not even the first of their picks that year. I think he still looks back on that and is more prioritizing his top picks with much more resources and research. What saved him is those home runs in the later rounds. I think the experience in Detroit is kind of reversed. He is nailing our first picks, and later rounds so far are kinda meh. Still need time to tell.

Tampa

1. Brett Connolly - 1st round, 6th overall in 2010
2. Vladislav Namestnikov - 1st round, 27th overall in 2011
3. Slater Koekkoek - 1st round, 10th overall in 2012
4. Andrei Vasilevskiy - 1st round, 19th overall in 2012
5. Jonathan Drouin - 1st round, 3rd overall in 2013 (traded for Mikhail Sergachev)
6. Anthony DeAngelo - 1st round, 19th overall in 2014
7. Cal Foote - 1st round, 14th overall in 2017

​

1. Nikita Kucherov - 2nd round, 58th overall in 2011
2. Brayden Point - 3rd round, 79th overall in 2014
3. Ondrej Palat - 7th round, 208th overall in 2011
4. Anthony Cirelli - 3rd round, 72nd overall in 2015

Detroit

• 2019: Moritz Seider - 6th overall
• 2020: Lucas Raymond - 4th overall
• 2021: Simon Edvinsson - 6th overall
• 2021: Sebastian Cossa - 15th overall
• 2022: Marco Kasper - 8th overall
• 2023: Nate Danielson - 9th overall

• Albert Johansson - 2nd round, 60th overall in 2019
• Elmer Söderblom - 6th round, 159th overall in 2019
• Donovan Sebrango - 3rd round, 63rd overall in 2020
• Cross Hanas - 2nd round, 55th overall in 2020
• Carter Mazur - 3rd round, 70th overall in 2021

Add to that going from the basement to 1 point from the playoffs, no crippling contracts, some shrewd trades, and starting to become a desirable destination for UFA. I still don't understand why people could be disappointed.

 

[Ed Ned and Leddy]

The Star GM descriptor to me sounds like a Pat Riley or Gregg Popovich type of figure, and I don’t think there’s anyone quite like that in hockey right now. Honestly, if Yzerman did build a Cup winner here after his work in Tampa, he’d have to be on the short list there.

I vote good based on description, which to me is probably “great” in relation to his peers and realistic obstacles faced in franchise building. I think he has a clear idea of the team he wants to build and has the ability, patience, and personnel required to execute on that plan. Doesn’t sound like a huge ask, but in my lifetime Holland, Holmes, Harbaugh, maybe Dumars and Dombrowski are the only executives who have had met that criteria. And I think Yzerman entered a trickier situation than many of those folks.

 

[Axel Sandy Pelikan]

No, I don't really think that. Kane > Sprong.

Kane has way more production than Sprong, though, partly because of the minutes differential. So I probably don't consider the difference between the two as large as you do.

I don't know if Kane is a net positive at all in 5-on-5, despite all his point production. The other team seems to score a lot of points too when Kane is out there. Kane is definitely a net positive on the PP. That's why we could flip him at the deadline for some real value.

I don't have time to look it up right now, but didn't we have a better record without Kane? Now, some of those games we lost, we were missing Larkin; but we were missing him because Ottawa didn't fear our PP, even with Kane, and they were willing to cross-check him in the neck. So...what's the use of having Kane then? We'd have been better off with a face puncher instead. Maybe we went after the wrong Kane.

You say "Kane > Sprong" and then go into a description that reveals your actual thoughts on it.

Kane has way more production because he's a much better player than Daniel Sprong. It's why one of them signed for 6.5M and one signed for 750k.

All that last paragraph means is that Larkin is vitally important to the Wings. We were missing him because Larkin drives the offense with speed and him on the top line can take a bunch of attention and still score, leaving the 2nd line in a much better spot to still produce. With Larkin, no Kane, you've still got a better second line. With Kane, no Larkin, you've got JT Compher manning the 1C role which he's not capable of. You have Copp or Rasmussen as 2C which they're overmatched in.

 

[Big Poppa Puck]

I don't agree with everything he's done, but I chose the 2nd option.

In the moment, the only move I hated was the Walman trade, everything else I either was neutral/meh towards or liked. Even Holl didn't bother me too much thought it was a slight over pay for a 7th D. Copp deal isn't aging well but I liked it at the time. And if those are your worst moves I'd say you're doing a good job.

Fabbri, DeBrincat, Leddy/Walman, Hronek and Mantha trades were all great. Kane signing. Perron was good for us.

Seider and Raymond are huge hits in the draft, too early to say on the rest, although Edvinsson seems like a hit as well.