Where did Yzerman go wrong with the rebuild?

[Ulysses31]

No seriously - Where did the rebuild go wrong?


Because its looking pretty good to my eye.

i think a lot outsiders get critical and confused by the amont of stop gaps/ insulating vets SY signs and the high dollars that were paid out to some mediocre players.

but what they fail to see is the sucess of the rebuild lives or dies on the success of drafted players and a shytty ufa signing doesnt matter much compared to 1) drafting the right players n 2) give them an optimal environment to develope in. 3) building team 1st culture

ppl saying the the yzerplan have failed to see the yzerplan hasnt arrived yet.

 

[Lampedampe]

I'm not a massive fan of him signing so many mediocre D-men and ultimately creating a log-jam on defense. Let's be honest Edvinsson should be entering his second full year this year, and the team would have been in a better position as a result. It's not like the vets are solid either, the 5on5 defense is what is holding this team back.

But regardless of that, Yzerman started on ground zero really. The only real trade bait he had was AA, Bertuzzi, Mantha and Hronek. The prospect pool was non-exsistent.

Looking at the pre-season and camp rosters excites me for the future, so many solid prospects knocking on the door. The addition and Tarasenko, Debrincat and Kane is great, and honestly underrated GM:ing.

Cap structure looks great aswell.

If we had one of Bedard, Fantilli or Carlsson on the roster people would be all in on the Yzerplan, but why, because he got lucky?

 

[Lampedampe]

I'm not a massive fan of him signing so many mediocre D-men and ultimately creating a log-jam on defense. Let's be honest Edvinsson should be entering his second full year this year, and the team would have been in a better position as a result. It's not like the vets are solid either, the 5on5 defense is what is holding this team back.

But regardless of that, Yzerman started on ground zero really. The only real trade bait he had was AA, Bertuzzi, Mantha and Hronek. The prospect pool was non-exsistent.

Looking at the pre-season and camp rosters excites me for the future, so many solid prospects knocking on the door. The addition and Tarasenko, Debrincat and Kane is great, and honestly underrated management.

Cap structure looks great aswell.

If we had one of Bedard, Fantilli or Carlsson on the roster people would be all in on the Yzerplan, but why, because he got lucky?

Calling them mediocre is probably abit generous of me... Holl and Petry are actually terrible.

 

[Henkka]

I really like how they have now tools to add speed on the team.

Like adding Motte, how fast Kasper is and how great skater Danielson is.

I saw a lot of critizism from my Finnish DET-friends of seeing Red Wings being too slow versus other NHL-teams. Cutting Perron was the first move to right direction, and these young guys will make big difference very soon.

Not from the 1st day, but very soon.

Adding speed will change the transition game balance, and also, adding better 1st pass defencemen will enchance that too.

This could make a big change, which no one can't predict, because predictions are always based on the past.

 

[Dotter]

Calling them mediocre is probably abit generous of me... Holl and Petry are actually terrible.

UFAs were lining up around the corner to come sign short(er) contracts with a team that was a few years removed from one of the worse seasons recorded in NHL modern history.

Players that signed were either Michigan guys that wanted to have an opportunity to wear the sweater they grew up loving, or NHL rejects... or both. I doubt Yzerman sugar coated DRWs trajectory to UFAs.

 

[Gniwder]

UFAs were lining up around the corner to come sign short(er) contracts with a team that was a few years removed from one of the worse seasons recorded in NHL modern history.

Players that signed were either Michigan guys that wanted to have an opportunity to wear the sweater they grew up loving, or NHL rejects... or both. I doubt Yzerman sugar coated DRWs trajectory to UFAs.

Holl is from MN, and Petry was acquired in a trade.

 

[Dotter]

Holl is from MN, and Petry was acquired in a trade.

Exactly. NHL Reject, and Petry is a Michigan boy with a M-NTC.

 

[Gniwder]

Exactly. NHL Reject, and Petry is a Michigan boy with a M-NTC.

You don't shell out $3.4M x 3 years to someone you think is a reject. Fischer/Motte contracts are what you expect.

Petry's NTC is a 15 team list. Not sure if the Wings make that list even if he wasn't a hometown guy. From what I read California teams are always on the list due to high taxes, and Canadian teams are typically on American players lists.

 

[Dotter]

You don't shell out $3.4M x 3 years to someone you think is a reject. Fischer/Motte contracts are what you expect.

Petry's NTC is a 15 team list. Not sure if the Wings make that list even if he wasn't a hometown guy. From what I read California teams are always on the list due to high taxes, and Canadian teams are typically on American players lists.

I don't think you understand my original post you are quoting. Maybe I am a bad communicator, but the post has lots of likes. So I'm not sure where the disconnect is.

 

[DavidpauseReinbacher]

I'm not a massive fan of him signing so many mediocre D-men and ultimately creating a log-jam on defense. Let's be honest Edvinsson should be entering his second full year this year, and the team would have been in a better position as a result. It's not like the vets are solid either, the 5on5 defense is what is holding this team back.

But regardless of that, Yzerman started on ground zero really. The only real trade bait he had was AA, Bertuzzi, Mantha and Hronek. The prospect pool was non-exsistent.

Looking at the pre-season and camp rosters excites me for the future, so many solid prospects knocking on the door. The addition and Tarasenko, Debrincat and Kane is great, and honestly underrated GM:ing.

Cap structure looks great aswell.

If we had one of Bedard, Fantilli or Carlsson on the roster people would be all in on the Yzerplan, but why, because he got lucky?

Log jam? These plebs gotta beat out Ben chariot Gustafson and holl? If they can't then that's on them lol.

 

[odin1981]

Please forget this speculative schit, because gettin better defencemen earlier would have prevented getting these defencemen we have now.... :/

They'll improve the team, and then we don't draft that high etc. At least Edvinsson will fall out for sure. Seider could have been there anyways.

We could have had Seider + Dobson on each top 4 pairing with Edvinsson.

 

[Pavels Dog]

We could have had Seider + Dobson on each top 4 pairing with Edvinsson.

I like to imagine we could have had Broberg & Holtz instead of Seider & Raymond to balance things out. No team hits on all their picks.

 

[FMichael]

I like to imagine we could have had Broberg & Holtz instead of Seider & Raymond to balance things out. No team hits on all their picks.

Kenny that you?

 

[Ulysses31]

will admit there were some ufa signing that hurt this team in the long holl, bit of a copp out

 

[Lampedampe]

Log jam? These plebs gotta beat out Ben chariot Gustafson and holl? If they can't then that's on them lol.

Never works like that, "lol". Edvinsson was never given a fair chance to beat them out last year. Or did you think Edvinsson was worse than Holl or Petry last year's pre-season? To me it was clear he should have "beat" them.

 

[Lampedampe]

UFAs were lining up around the corner to come sign short(er) contracts with a team that was a few years removed from one of the worse seasons recorded in NHL modern history.

Players that signed were either Michigan guys that wanted to have an opportunity to wear the sweater they grew up loving, or NHL rejects... or both. I doubt Yzerman sugar coated DRWs trajectory to UFAs.

Okay, so it's difficult to get UFA's when you're a bad team. Water is wet, etc.

There are 2 points I suppose you can make with your statement. 1 is that Yzerman could not have signed better defensemen, and I probably agree with that. I've never held that against him.

2nd is that he had to get 2 defensemen last year, and so he got the best that was available to him. This is what I don't agree with, I understand the need for 6 proven nhl defenders, but not 7. Especially with a bunch of young defensemen knocking on the door waiting for a chance.

Maybe there's a 3rd point I'm not seeing?

 

[ShanahanMan]

Draper and Lalonde aren’t helping things

 

[Pavels Dog]

Never works like that, "lol". Edvinsson was never given a fair chance to beat them out last year. Or did you think Edvinsson was worse than Holl or Petry last year's pre-season? To me it was clear he should have "beat" them.

Edvinsson was given chances, he honestly wasn't all that amazing a year ago. He had good and bad moments. Beating out Holl for the #7 spot is kind of meaningless considering no one wanted Edvinsson to sit in the press box.
A lot of the time people have trouble seeing past the talent level. Edvinsson needed refinement and he's done a lot of that.

 

[Lazlo Hollyfeld]

Edvinsson was given chances, he honestly wasn't all that amazing a year ago. He had good and bad moments. Beating out Holl for the #7 spot is kind of meaningless considering no one wanted Edvinsson to sit in the press box.
A lot of the time people have trouble seeing past the talent level. Edvinsson needed refinement and he's done a lot of that.

Exactly. They wanted him getting experience playing big minutes. Not putting him on the bottom pairing in the nhl.

Being better than Holl wasn’t the bar.

 

[Lampedampe]

Edvinsson was given chances, he honestly wasn't all that amazing a year ago. He had good and bad moments. Beating out Holl for the #7 spot is kind of meaningless considering no one wanted Edvinsson to sit in the press box.
A lot of the time people have trouble seeing past the talent level. Edvinsson needed refinement and he's done a lot of that.

Sure could just be my eyes, or my memory. But i remember being impressed by him during last year's pre-season, and I was sure he'd get to start the year in Detroit.

 

[Lampedampe]

Also, Petry can't just be buried with his nmc. So their option would be to bury Holl and have Petry sit on the bench.

In this case I wouldn't be very pleased with the like 5 million worth in cap doing nothing. This is before even playing a single game for Detroit(Not sure with the exact cap without Capfriendly).

 

[ricky0034]

the Wings decided long before the preseason even started last year that Edvinsson would be playing in the AHL and worked backwards from there

this was incredibly obvious even at the time(and I recall pointing out as much a year ago), look no further than how they added Petry as far back as August even though they already had 6 NHL Defensemen not named Edvinsson on the team who aside from Ghost(and I guess technically Seider but he was an RFA and obviously wasn't going anywhere) were all even locked up to multiple year deals


this year they've done the opposite and decided Edvinsson will be on the team long before preseason even started, this stuff is all incredibly obvious if you just take one glance at contracts

teams, especially exceptionally stubborn ones line the Wings, generally make decisions far in advance and actual performance doesn't tend to matter nearly as much as fans like to think it does

 

[Vandalay Industries]

One of Yzerman's philosophies - which brought a lot of success to Tampa Bay, and to me clearly will do the same for Detroit - is not to bring in the young players too quickly. His philosophy is, that it is better for the players in the long run to be patient and build on them either going through SHL, SM Liiga, Czech league, KHL or WHL/QMJHL/OHL and then have them go through AHL as well to mature their play and personalities before entering NHL.

This clearly has left a lot of fans frustrated for a couple of years, but if you want to be here for the long haul as a top team, you have to prepare well. And that is what Yzerman is doing.

It's not ideal to bet the farm when the timing is not right.

You have to have a couple of goaltenders that you can count on and eventhough they have tried out a bunch of different players here, they just hasn't had any luck. Once Cossa (and perhaps Gage Alexander or Gylander) is here I think it's about time to get going. I expect that to be in about a year or two. Hopefully we can get him a few games this season to get a taste of it.

A breakthrough in about two years would probably fit nicely with Edvinsson hitting his high and Seider reaching first all star level. At the same time Axel Sandin Pellikka will be ready to go in two years time. Then Yzerman will have his important three-top-D's nucleus.

At that point he will probabaly also lean into a signing such as Steven Stamkos much harder than he did this year.

I'm sure Nate Danielson will be a very strong player in two years to compliment Larkin, Raymond, DeBrincat, Rasmussen, Veleno and at least two of Brandsegg-Nygård, Mazur, Kasper, Söderblom and the other draftees,

But if he had just gone in blazing a couple of years ago and bought whomever was available on the market it might have brought a couple of playoff spots, but just not a long lasting build-up, because it would have cost several other bricks in the foundation. By staying true to his principles he is seeking a very long period as a contender. Not just two years and then another rebuild.

 

[Vandalay Industries]

One of Yzerman's philosophies - which brought a lot of success to Tampa Bay, and to me clearly will do the same for Detroit - is not to bring in the young players too quickly. His philosophy is, that it is better for the players in the long run to be patient and build on them either going through SHL, SM Liiga, Czech league, KHL or WHL/QMJHL/OHL and then have them go through AHL as well to mature their play and personalities before entering NHL.

This clearly has left a lot of fans frustrated for a couple of years, but if you want to be here for the long haul as a top team, you have to prepare well. And that is what Yzerman is doing.

It's not ideal to bet the farm when the timing is not right.

You have to have a couple of goaltenders that you can count on and eventhough they have tried out a bunch of different players here, they just hasn't had any luck. Once Cossa (and perhaps Gage Alexander or Gylander) is here I think it's about time to get going. I expect that to be in about a year or two. Hopefully we can get him a few games this season to get a taste of it.

A breakthrough in about two years would probably fit nicely with Edvinsson hitting his high and Seider reaching first all star level. At the same time Axel Sandin Pellikka will be ready to go in two years time. Then Yzerman will have his important three-top-D's nucleus.

At that point he will probabaly also lean into a signing such as Steven Stamkos much harder than he did this year.

I'm sure Nate Danielson will be a very strong player in two years to compliment Larkin, Raymond, DeBrincat, Rasmussen, Veleno and at least two of Brandsegg-Nygård, Mazur, Kasper, Söderblom and the other draftees,

But if he had just gone in blazing a couple of years ago and bought whomever was available on the market it might have brought a couple of playoff spots, but just not a long lasting build-up, because it would have cost several other bricks in the foundation. By staying true to his principles he is seeking a very long period as a contender. Not just two years and then another rebuild.

I feel I have to clarify on the first sentence that IF the young players are absolutely astounding talents he would of course bring them to NHL quicker. He would of course get him directly to the NHL had he gotten Connor Bedard, But if he feels they need to mature in the AHL, he is not letting pressure from fans or the press mess with what he and the people around him feel is the right thing to do. Patience is alfa and omega.

 

[OldnotDeadWings]

One thing people need to understand about the rebuild is that SY has as much if not more job security than any GM in the league. He doesn't have to play by anyone else's time clock, the rebuild game will be over when he says it's over. There has been no announced "five-year plan" or any number of years to reach intermediate or final goals that many other GMs have to reach in order to keep their jobs, but which SY doesn't need to do so he won't. His time clock has an infinite (or at least unknown) number of years and he is using that to max advantage, taking it slow with prospects, keeping expectations down, advising patience, etc. For many fans this can be anywhere from frustrating to intolerable. They want to see tangible results ASAP. They want a known frame of reference to judge him by along the way. Small but steady improvement is okay but boring. A temporary but harmless step backward one year would be unacceptable. Creating a deep prospect pool, keeping options open with limited long-term Cap commitments is nice but not of immediate benefit. People saying there will be a couple of big trades someday are met with the rational response, "Alright, but when?"

In some ways, compared to other rebuilds in the past and present, this rebuild is being conducted in an alternate universe to the normal state of affairs in the NHL. Considering how many "normal" rebuilds fail, this strikes me as a good way to do it, or at the very least interesting. But, it requires an adjustment to a different frame of reference than one is perhaps used to. I'm fine with it and others are too, but it's understandable if some fans can't or don't see the point in looking at things differently.