Where did Yzerman go wrong with the rebuild?

[Finnen]

Petry concludes.

 

[SirKillalot]

When you trade assets for players (Debrincat) and you attempt to sign vets to plug holes. You are exciting the rebuild, and then add in the barely any cap space portion. The offseason of 2022 was a clear sign of that.

No,, when you hear DeBrincat don't want to stay in Ottawa and express interest in going to Detroit, and he is a reliable player that is at an age where he could/would still be relevant when the young guys come of age, plus a little chip to potentially lure a 3x veteran Stanley Cup winner to the team as well because of their chemistry, you do it if the price for the trade isn't bad. Believe it or not, a team planning on bringing so many young players in need to have some veterans that by that point they arrive, have been with the team some years already.

You are never forced to overpay for bad players

Well, you can call some mediocre or bad or players that skill wise don't move the needle, but is signed for culture and at least work ethic, yes you have to overpay for them to sign for a team down in the standings and often overpay.

Singing one or two vets to short term deals is. You don't sign multiple 5 year deals. The Wings were not trying to be bad after the 2022 offseason. The management thought Copp and Chiarot were good players

You sign players who fill the holes that won't get filled until the youth get there. Whether that is 2 years,, 4 years or 5 years doesn't matter. If you know that idk MBN or ASP don't get into the team by earliest 2026, does it matter if you in 2022 sign a guy to 1-2 years and then have to find another guy for 1-2 years and then another guy 1-2 years or if you sign a guy to 4-5 years?

Whether you like him or not, Copp was a 2nd line player on a team that went to the conference finals. He wasn't a bad player. Chiarot used to be good, showed decline before he got here. However management hoped he could get a turn for the better, it didn't work out. It was a gamble. Both been a disappointment so far but at least Copp is looking decent now.

Not trying to be bad is exiting the rebuild. They chose to accelerate the process by signing FAs

No, its part of the process of rebuilding. When you are exciting that is when you multiple times trade assets you'd like to keep for bigger assets, and sign a "star" or two in free agency.

no, we weren't trying to be bad any more. We were coming off a 74 point season, the days of us competing for a top3 spot in the draft were over. We signed guys to insulate the youth and to allow us to build up the system. it's not a coincidence that those deals will be expiring right when the kids would hopefully be taking over spots in Detroit.

Exactly. You sign players to fill the gaps and use it as motivation/encouragement for the younger guys in the team to improve, some of those older guys signed want a shot somewhere, some work out long term, others don't stick. Your hope is some find a role that makes them part of the team beyond when you come to the exit of the rebuild Nnowski like to talk about.

Signing Chairot and Copp was a sign that the Red Wings were below the cap floor and needed to add 10-12 million in cap hits to ice a legal roster. They were signed as filler.

It was a weak UFA class and Detroit had to spend. Copp and Chairot were the players that had reciprocating interest in signing in Detroit.

Yes, they like Chicago need to sign guys to decent cap hits, and to get them here some had to be overpaid.

I think Yzerman signed these guys to these deals because we needed to fill those spots for the foreseeable future, we wanted to insulate the kids, and that's just what it costs.

Exactly. It's market value+, that's just how it is.

 

[Nnowski]

No,, when you hear DeBrincat don't want to stay in Ottawa and express interest in going to Detroit, and he is a reliable player that is at an age where he could/would still be relevant when the young guys come of age, plus a little chip to potentially lure a 3x veteran Stanley Cup winner to the team as well because of their chemistry, you do it if the price for the trade isn't bad. Believe it or not, a team planning on bringing so many young players in need to have some veterans that by that point they arrive, have been with the team some years already.

Well, you can call some mediocre or bad or players that skill wise don't move the needle, but is signed for culture and at least work ethic, yes you have to overpay for them to sign for a team down in the standings and often overpay.

You sign players who fill the holes that won't get filled until the youth get there. Whether that is 2 years,, 4 years or 5 years doesn't matter. If you know that idk MBN or ASP don't get into the team by earliest 2026, does it matter if you in 2022 sign a guy to 1-2 years and then have to find another guy for 1-2 years and then another guy 1-2 years or if you sign a guy to 4-5 years?

Whether you like him or not, Copp was a 2nd line player on a team that went to the conference finals. He wasn't a bad player. Chiarot used to be good, showed decline before he got here. However management hoped he could get a turn for the better, it didn't work out. It was a gamble. Both been a disappointment so far but at least Copp is looking decent now.

No, its part of the process of rebuilding. When you are exciting that is when you multiple times trade assets you'd like to keep for bigger assets, and sign a "star" or two in free agency.

Exactly. You sign players to fill the gaps and use it as motivation/encouragement for the younger guys in the team to improve, some of those older guys signed want a shot somewhere, some work out long term, others don't stick. Your hope is some find a role that makes them part of the team beyond when you come to the exit of the rebuild Nnowski like to talk about.

Yes, they like Chicago need to sign guys to decent cap hits, and to get them here some had to be overpaid.

Exactly. It's market value+, that's just how it is.

My initial point was that there is no team that has successfully rebuilt in the last decade except for Toronto. The method that Detroit is trying is extremely weird, and they currently project to be a mushy middle team for the foreseeable future. It's very difficult to see a scenario where they are contenders, unless one of their random forward draft picks turns into a superstar.

 

[RabidBadger]

The individual player is irrelevant, but signing him, along with others was a sign that the Wings were looking to exit their rebuild. Their pro scouting unfortunately let them down again, and they didn't get much better the next year

Interesting take. And I'm trying to be nice by saying that. I'm not sure who you think they could have taken, relative to their draft position, that would have made the team "much better" after signing Chiarot.

Without a lottery player, or even with, this team would still be lower in the standings. We were more gutted of talent than Buffalo (and their lottery picks) at the point you referenced.

 

[norrisnick]

My initial point was that there is no team that has successfully rebuilt in the last decade except for Toronto. The method that Detroit is trying is extremely weird, and they currently project to be a mushy middle team for the foreseeable future. It's very difficult to see a scenario where they are contenders, unless one of their random forward draft picks turns into a superstar.

These two things should never go together.

 

[Nnowski]

Interesting take. And I'm trying to be nice by saying that. I'm not sure who you think they could have taken, relative to their draft position, that would have made the team "much better" after signing Chiarot.

Without a lottery player, or even with, this team would still be lower in the standings. We were more gutted of talent than Buffalo (and their lottery picks) at the point you referenced.

I think the team is better with Chiarot off the ice, so that's an easy answer for me lol. But the Wings really messed up by not tanking for another year. Getting Danielson instead of Leonard/Michkov or potentially a top 5 pick really hurt the teams future.

 

[RabidBadger]

I think the team is better with Chiarot off the ice, so that's an easy answer for me lol. But the Wings really messed up by not tanking for another year. Getting Danielson instead of Leonard/Michkov or potentially a top 5 pick really hurt the teams future.

Okay, the post I replied to you stated drafting let them down. Now it's shifted to they should have tanked so scouting had better choices. Pick a direction.

Michkov is great and all, but Philly is trending backwards even with him. I like Leonard but you can't say with any certainty he will be more beneficial than Danielson.

 

[Nnowski]

Okay, the post I replied to you stated drafting let them down. Now it's shifted to they should have tanked so scouting had better choices. Pick a direction.

Michkov is great and all, but Philly is trending backwards even with him. I like Leonard but you can't say with any certainty he will be more beneficial than Danielson.

Drafting did let them down yes. They've drafted 1 top 6 forward in 6 years. I've always liked their D drafting though.

 

[RabidBadger]

Drafting did let them down yes. They've drafted 1 top 6 forward in 6 years. I've always liked their D drafting though.

Don't forget about the anchors for the 1st and 2nd pair D.

Outside of lottery winners, what other team has drafted more than one top 6 forward in that time...and would you rather have those forward picks over Seider and Ed?

 

[Nnowski]

Don't forget about the anchors for the 1st and 2nd pair D.

Outside of lottery winners, what other team has drafted more than one top 6 forward in that time...and would you rather have those forward picks over Seider and Ed?

I think it's easier to win a championship with a patchwork defense vs a patchwork offense. I love the Seider and Edvinsson picks. Dallas has drafted 2, MTL has if you count Demidov. There's a few others with borderline top 6 players

 

[Snuggs]

Red Wings trade F Jonatan Berggren, LHD Eric Gustavsson, 2025 1st round and a 2026 5th round pick.

Penguins trade LHD Marcus Pettersson and their 2025 2nd round pick.



Red Wings trade F Michael Rasmussen, RHD Justin Holl, LHD William Wallinder and a 2025 3rd round pick.

Flyers trade RHD Rasmus Ristolainen.


Alex DeBrincat – (C) Dylan Larkin – Patrick Kane
(A) Andrew Copp – J.T. Compher – Lucas Raymond
Amadeus Lombardi – Marco Kasper – Vladimir Tarasenko
Christian Fischer – Joe Veleno – Carter Mazur

* Tyler Motte
* Austin Watson

Simon Edvinsson – Mortiz Seider
Marcus Pettersson – Rasmus Ristolainen
(A) Ben Chiarot – Albert Johansson
* Jeff Petry

Cam Talbot
Alex Lyon



Pettersson is a UFA at the end of the year, so you'll have a half season to see if he fits an try to resign.

 

[Winger98]

Maybe I'm off but it feels like we would be overpaying there. I think we could grab Ristolainen cheaper and I'd just take that.

Ed-Seider
Chiarot-Risto
Albert-Holl
Petry, Gus

Next year, we have to make a decision on Wallinder because I think he's out of waiver options. If he has at a decent season in GR (providing he ever gets healthy), I'd want to give him a look. Let Petry walk, move Gus. And it's very possible that ASP pushed his way onto the roster.

Ed-Seider
Albert-Risto
Chiarot-ASP
Wallinder, holl

 

[Ricelund]

Why do we want Ristolainen?

 

[Ulysses31]

Maybe I'm off but it feels like we would be overpaying there. I think we could grab Ristolainen cheaper and I'd just take that.

Ed-Seider
Chiarot-Risto
Albert-Holl
Petry, Gus

Next year, we have to make a decision on Wallinder because I think he's out of waiver options. If he has at a decent season in GR (providing he ever gets healthy), I'd want to give him a look. Let Petry walk, move Gus. And it's very possible that ASP pushed his way onto the roster.

Ed-Seider
Albert-Risto
Chiarot-ASP
Wallinder, holl

not 100% certain but as i understand tuomisto n soderblom not waiver exept next season, but wallinder can b sent down without waivers

 

[Retire91]

My favorite part of this thread so far is, the rebuild is a failure because of all the tanking, but also we should have tanked more for the Bedard sweepstakes I've not seen a single revisionist comment on this thread so far from 2019 on forward that puts us in a different position.

The biggest factor of this rebuild is something we had no control over is the lottery system "f***d" us. If you go back all the way through the 2019 draft every top3 pick is on their team and contributing at a high level. I can't underscore enough how much the talent falls off out of the top 3. The fact that we have what we have is quite frankly incredible. The title of this thread should be how on earth are things going this well despite how steep of a hill we had to climb.

There are still plugs on this roster, as that changes more an more with each season things will change. Some of Yzerman's best moves are still ahead of us.

 

[Winger98]

Why do we want Ristolainen?

we want an upgrade on the right side, personally I lean towards short term because we have ASP coming, so a guy like Risto, Trouba, or Faulk are really good options to me. I'd add Fowler because he can play either side (which might make him ideal).

not 100% certain but as i understand tuomisto n soderblom not waiver exept next season, but wallinder can b sent down without waivers

I was trying to remember from the old cap site and their waiver calculator. I thought Wallinder was out of options, and agree about Tuomisto and Soderblom.

 

[RabidBadger]

I think it's easier to win a championship with a patchwork defense vs a patchwork offense. I love the Seider and Edvinsson picks. Dallas has drafted 2, MTL has if you count Demidov. There's a few others with borderline top 6 players

That's only two teams then. I don't think you can hold Yzerman to a standard only 2 teams have met, especially when the backend was the initial priority. I think the 2 top 3 dmen carry a lot more weight in terms of future success.

 

[norrisnick]

Just call up Tuomisto. If he's bad, nothing changes. If he's good, free upgrade.

 

[TheOctopusKid]

The one thing that keeps being beaten to death is this idea that our "bad contracts" are hurting us. This does not seem like a logical argument as so much an emotional one? I don't think that at any time our decision making process or personnel choices have been restricted in the last 5 years due to "cap" issues and trying to make something work?

"Walman!!" - I mean, maybe? But he seemed very much a decision made around cultural fit, organizational goals and less about needing the money.

Can you argue that we paid too much for Copp? Sure, you could. I've made the argument numerous times that he was generally at fair market value for what he brought and what his comp's signed for however, for the sake of argument - sure, Copp is too expensive.

Do you like him better at... 5M? 4M? at only 3yrs? 2ys?

Because if you're advocating for signing cheaper players at lesser term to 'save cap', that's what Pius Suter at 3.25M at 2yr. That's what you get at that rate and that's exactly what Yzerman did when he took over because quite frankly a guy like Copp wouldn't have signed with us. So Yzerman signed a bunch of Suters, Kubaliks, the Nemeths, etc. And I can tell you that those teams were significantly worse than have Copp, Compher, and Holl.

I guess the question is would you rather have Suter, Kubalik, and Nemeth + 8M in cap space or Copp, Compher, and Holl?

Whether or not DET is at 75M or 84M in team spending doesn't really help or hurt us either way?

The value of having a Copp, Compher, etc. over a Suter and Kubalik... is quite frankly, those guys a straight up better, can play harder minutes, keep the rookies sheltered, and both are high character "A" level guys who help a bunch of 19 year olds get a feel for it all and give them a professional model to follow. Having those kinds of guys to help them out and show a bunch of 19 year olds how to eat, dress, prepare, etc. can't be undersold. The fact that they are going to go out there are eat minutes battle in the corners with Tom Wilson and chase Nate McKinnon for 22 minutes a night, etc. and not get utterly obliterated (still beaten, but better than Patrick Nemeth), it gives the kids something to rely on over trying to learn how to play from...Jordan Oesterle.

Having saved cap space for a team well under the ceiling and trading in Suter instead of Copp just isn't worth it.

The plan of the rebuild has been pretty clear thus far: get as many high quality prospects as we can get, get the 'right' veterans to shield and cushion them until they are ready for the roles and can clearly displace the veteran.

 

[Gniwder]

Why do we want Ristolainen?

Why would the second lowest shooting team in the league trade their #4 shooter (Burger)?

Defense looks like crap too often, but Cam is there to bail them out. Can't win without scoring though.

 

[Frk It]

My favorite part of this thread so far is, the rebuild is a failure because of all the tanking, but also we should have tanked more for the Bedard sweepstakes I've not seen a single revisionist comment on this thread so far from 2019 on forward that puts us in a different position.

The biggest factor of this rebuild is something we had no control over is the lottery system "f***d" us. If you go back all the way through the 2019 draft every top3 pick is on their team and contributing at a high level. I can't underscore enough how much the talent falls off out of the top 3. The fact that we have what we have is quite frankly incredible. The title of this thread should be how on earth are things going this well despite how steep of a hill we had to climb.

There are still plugs on this roster, as that changes more a more with each season things will change. Some of Yzerman's best moves are still ahead of us.

I am pretty sure most people do not have a good grasp of how hard the task at hand really is.

 

[SoupNazi]

I am pretty sure most people do not have a good grasp of how hard the task at hand really is.

I think people see that some teams pick 1OA and turn around, without seeing the pain those teams go through to get that bad and then develop their top talent.

I also think SY's relative success in Tampa (although he started with a much better situation than he did here) has significantly skewed expectations for where we should be. There's also the expectation that all things are equal in free agency, and instead of giving Copp and Chiarot their contracts, we can magically snap our fingers and get any FA on a one or two year deal while we continue to lose. Never mind that players have free will and not everybody wants to play for Detroit.

 

[Frk It]

I think people see that some teams pick 1OA and turn around, without seeing the pain those teams go through to get that bad and then develop their top talent.

I also think SY's relative success in Tampa (although he started with a much better situation than he did here) has significantly skewed expectations for where we should be. There's also the expectation that all things are equal in free agency, and instead of giving Copp and Chiarot their contracts, we can magically snap our fingers and get any FA on a one or two year deal while we continue to lose. Never mind that players have free will and not everybody wants to play for Detroit.

There is no universally accepted way to re-build with this current landscape.

A lot of fans will say tank and keep tanking until something good happens. Which was a lot more viable when you were guaranteed a top 2 pick for being last.

But with this current landscape, last place used to get you most likely pick #4 and more recently gets you most likely pick #3. A lot of sensible GM's would/have come to the conclusion that it is just not worth it to go out of your way to be the worst team in the league for that type of reward. There also seems to be this fallacy among fans that GM's can just *control* where the team finishes. No, you can't. This is real life and not a video game. And if you really want to go out of your way to make sure you are last you can pull a Sabres and cause a ton of collateral damage and still not get the 1st pick anyways.

I may still get mad at Yzerman doing/not doing certain things the way I would like along the way, but I do not envy the task he is trying to pull off at all.

 

[RabidBadger]

I think people see that some teams pick 1OA and turn around, without seeing the pain those teams go through to get that bad and then develop their top talent.

Colorado is a good case in point. They got Landeskog with a number 2 pick, added McKinnon with a #1, then had to get Rantennen and Makar to get the top of the heap. McKinnon was in his 9th season when they won the Cup. Pretty sure McD was in his 9th season last year and had his first sniff of the finals...and he's going to go down as one of the 10 best players ever!

 

[Gniwder]

My favorite part of this thread so far is, the rebuild is a failure because of all the tanking, but also we should have tanked more for the Bedard sweepstakes

Any time you combine arguments from multiple people, you're gonna wind up with absurdity like AI.

If we're just going to compete for a playoff spot and not the Cup, trading for Horvat and not signing Copp/Compher would have gotten us there sooner.