Where did Yzerman go wrong with the rebuild?

[Axel Sandy Pelikan]

It's the same "plan" as years past. Get a bunch of guys who aren't that good to see who "seizes" the opportunity. Nobody does for any length of time. Wash. Rinse. Repeat. When you say you have 3 starters, you actually have zero starters.

The idea has been to patchwork together the net until Cossa or Augustine make it or see if a guy like Gibson is available for a reasonable price. I actually agree when you say you have several, you have none. But honestly, goalies are a fugazi unless you’re lucky enough to land Vasilevskiy or Shesterkin or something like that

 

[norrisnick]

look if you see a team with enough high end talent to truly compete with the top end teams then great, ultimately it's pretty subjective until we see more and at this point no amount of back and forth will change anyones minds on it until then

when I look at the Wings I don't see a successful rebuild though, I see a team that had a new GM come in and try to rebuild things, then halfway into acquiring the necessary talent decide that he didn't want to do that anymore, there's any number of possible reasons for that but personally I chalk it up to Yzerman getting bored, perhaps a bit frustrated with how lottery drawings shook out, and deciding hey what if I pulled this turkey out of the oven and finished cooking it in the microwave

I forget if it was the '23 post-mortem or when, but at some point in 2023, Yzerman answered this question with regards to why he went with the UFA haul in '22. In not so many words he said: They tried the be bad and accumulate picks for a few years. He got what he got because there is no way to control the lottery. And then it was time to stop being completely awful and work on improving because you can't just be terrible indefinitely. And that's what he's done since. I'm not sure that getting leapfrogged by lottery winners one more season would have done much of anything. Short of trading Larkin and keeping the '22 All-Rookie Team members out of the lineup, they weren't going to be bottom 5 anymore.

 

[Rzombo4 prez]

To go with this, team building isn’t happening in a vacuum. The team still has to put butts in seats and a perennial bottom feeder doesn’t do that. To claim it’s because the GM got bored is ridiculous.

This board will never understand that professional sports is a business first and foremost.

 

[Steve Yzerlland]

I'd like to see a trade for Rutger McGroarty. Veleno Berggren and Wallinder? He apparently wants a trade and is unproven also trading to another conference could lower the price?

 

[lidstromiscool]

Eh?

The Wings have done the following
2019-2021: tear down phase. Buying out bad contracts, riding out time on others.
2022: added the Copp, Compher, Perron type deals. *This is a step that rebuilding teams do. Bring in vets who won’t get absolutely caved in every single game so when they do play rookies; the team doesn’t just get smoked.
2023: signed chiarot, holl, pysyk, Hagg. Again, what a rebuilding team does… but just with a lot of defenders.

Seriously, what the hell do people think rebuilding teams are?

The Wings are now in that middle ground where they aren’t wantonly dumping pieces but they’re not good enough to dive in for rentals at the price of draft capital.

Detroit completely forgot the most important part, acquire elite talent phase. Which leads us to the purgatory phase. Signing veteran players that are just good enough to keep us out of the bottom of the league, not good enough to consistently make the playoffs.

Rebuilding sometimes takes a few tries. Colorado had Duchene and O'Reilly, and it didn't workout so they had to tank a few more years to get Mackinnon/Rantanen/Makar. A core that is good enough to consistently win a cup.
Tampa got Stamkos/Kucherov/Point/Hedman
Florida got Barkov/Ekblad/Huberdeau
Toronto had Kessel and then Matthews/Marner/Nylander
Pittsburgh got Crosby and Malkin
Washington got Ovechkin and Backstrom
Edmonton got Mcdavid/Draisaitl/RNH

Seider is elite. Larkin and Raymond are legit first liners but none of them are good enough to be on this list as core pieces on a contender.

 

[Henkka]

What about them?

Both look good, great even, but they're not superstars until they are

Biggest problem in here is how people can't project the oncoming growth from younger players. Too many just look on the stats and see meh-Raymond, only 72 point guy or meh-Seider only 42-point D.

But these guys have been breaking Red Wings team records from Lidström and Yzerman. That's insane. Pretty much you can expect very much bigger things from them in the future.

And, another thing is not understanding the depth of the prospect pool, and how that works. If "kids are the answer", why are they not brought in? Because they are not ready.

"But but, they should develop at NHL!" No, majority of them will develop at lower leagues, just like Tampa did for their Double Cup core at Syracuse.

 

[Zetterberg4Captain]

Biggest problem in here is how people can't project the oncoming growth from younger players. Too many just look on the stats and see meh-Raymond, only 72 point guy or meh-Seider only 42-point D.

But these guys have been breaking Red Wings team records from Lidström and Yzerman. That's insane. Pretty much you can expect very much bigger things from them in the future.

And, another thing is not understanding the depth of the prospect pool, and how that works. If "kids are the answer", why are they not brought in? Because they are not ready.

"But but, they should develop at NHL!" No, majority of them will develop at lower leagues, just like Tampa did for their Double Cup core at Syracuse.

I'd suggest assuming prospects projection is dangerous, it's how one ends up promoting Smith, Kindle, Sproul, Jurco, Sheahan, Frk and Zadina..

The prospect pool on paper looks great, but so many factors and hurdles remain for each of them that unless one can see the future it's best not to plan the parade yet(insert Toronto maple leaf joke)

 

[Henkka]

I'd suggest assuming prospects projection is dangerous, it's how one ends up promoting Smith, Kindle, Sproul, Jurco, Sheahan, Frk and Zadina..

Quite sure that group wasn't ranked to be NHL-best at any point.

It's different era and scouting staff now. Yzerman has changed more than half of the scouting staff.

The prospect pool on paper looks great, but so many factors and hurdles remain for each of them that unless one can see the future it's best not to plan the parade yet(insert Toronto maple leaf joke)

The key is amount of prospects, when there's 2-3 guys battling for one future roster spot, 2 can fail. 1 will push through with a high probability.

If there's 2 equal options, you select the better personality and trade another.

Just having a luxury instead of being desperate will create good things.

 

[JohanFranzenstein]

I'd like to see a trade for Rutger McGroarty. Veleno Berggren and Wallinder? He apparently wants a trade and is unproven also trading to another conference could lower the price?

I have a friend who works in the NTDP system, he said Rutger is kind of a headcase. He wants out of Winnipeg because he expected/demanded a roster spot when the college season was over. Winnipeg told him he has to earn it, and it's been sour grapes ever since. Just doesn't seem like the type of attitude management would want around.

 

[Retire91]

No, Holland's drafting out of NA in particular was always lackluster. The biggest difference is that Yzerman leans more heavily on Hakan for draft picks in the first two rounds.

2019: Seider, AlJo
2020: Ray, Wallinder
2021: Ed - the rest of the prime picks were all out of NA
2022: Kasper, Buchelnikov
2023: ASP - the rest of the prime picks were all out of NA
2024: MBN - the rest of the prime picks were all out of NA

So when Hakan gets 2+ picks in the first 2 rounds, they generally turn out to be prime prospects. Of all the guys drafted out of Europe in the first two rounds since Yzerman took over, only Neiderbach and Tuomisto are guys who aren't tracking to be quality NHL'ers and Tuomisto was a Wright guy.

Here are Holland's top 2 round draft picks out of NA. Guys who have played 500+ NHL games are in bold.

2018: Zadina, Veleno, McIsaac (Berggren the lone Euro looks to get a roster spot)
2017: Rasmussen (300 NHL games, bottom 6 forward)
2016: Cholo, Givani Smith (Hronek who will hit 500 was drafted out of Europe)
2015: Svechnikov
2014: Larkin (Holland's one home run hit out of NA)
2013: Mantha, Bertuzzi (both journeymen), Nastasiuk
2012: Frk
2011: Jurco, Ouellet, Sproul
2010: Sheahan, (Jarnkrok who will hit 700 was drafted out of Europe)
2009: Ferraro
2008: McCollum
2007: Brendan Smith
2006: Emmerton, Matthias
2005: Kindl, Abdelkader

This is what you describe as 'totally fine to good'? Rasmussen is the only guy since Larkin out of NA who has a shot at 500 NHL games played. That's 7 straight 2nd round or better draft picks who busted out of the biggest talent pool in the world.

Thankfully we have a GM who understands who his best scouts are and leans heavily on them. Our NA scouting has been truly awful for nearly 20 years.

Great list and also I would add player contributions as an asterisks. Several of these players had careers that make this list even worse. Let's be real many of these players got to 200 games because the pre 2019 Red Wings were basically an AHL team. And players that were serviceable he traded away.


Jarnkrok was essentially given away for nothing and turned out to be a serviceable player recently hitting 20 goals
Sheahan has always been a fringe NHL'er who's time was mainly due to how terrible the roster was. A top 6 red wings forward maxed out with a career high is 11 goals and at 32 years old already no longer plays in the NHL
Smith is basically Sheahan but on defense
Matthias see Sheahan and Smith
Cholo was a consolation prize where we gave up drafting Chychrun who has injury history but plays at .5 PPG or higher when healthy and would have been in our top pairing since 2017. The trade was unnecessary as it just unloaded Daytsuk's contract to give management room to max the cap out with more mediocrity.
Abdelkader was laughably a top line forward in that lineup and awarded one of the most horrendous contracts of the 2010's and was only bought out in 2019 because the ludicrous contract would not allow for it to be done sooner

the drafting and asset management during that time was atrocious. Over a 14 year period only 3 noteworthy NA players were drafted with those higher picks and Hronek being mostly the only notable European player. Rasmussen is in the top 5 of the list and does that as a bottom 6 forward. It's laughably bad.

Want to complain about how long the rebuild took? The answer starts with the Pre 2019 management of the team.

 

[Henkka]

It pretty much was Jim Nill as the responsibility for drafting, until he left to Dallas.

Never understood this "Holland drafting". He maybe had his opinions in discussions, but the media many times touted, for years, since Holland became GM at 1998, how Nill is on the full responsibility for drafting.

What really went south, was Holland's biggest mistake maybe ever, replacing Nill with Tyler Wright.

But that's what happens, after our front-office was drained dead try of management talent. Tyler Wright was a "bad trainee" who never evolved to anything good. Even Yzerman took best guys with him to Tampa, like Verbeek and scout. Nill took McDonnell + scouts to Dallas. Nothing was left, until Stevie started bringing some new blood in.

That Tyler Wright era is still the lowest point of all lowest points.

 

[Axel Sandy Pelikan]

It pretty much was Jim Nill as the responsibility for drafting, until he left to Dallas.

Never understood this "Holland drafting". He maybe had his opinions in discussions, but the media many times touted, for years, since Holland became GM at 1998, how Nill is on the full responsibility for drafting.

What really went south, was Holland's biggest mistake maybe ever, replacing Nill with Tyler Wright.

But that's what happens, after our front-office was drained dead try of management talent. Tyler Wright was a "bad trainee" who never evolved to anything good. Even Yzerman took best guys with him to Tampa, like Verbeek and scout. Nill took McDonnell + scouts to Dallas. Nothing was left, until Stevie started bringing some new blood in.

That Tyler Wright era is still the lowest point of all lowest points.

I mean... not really. How many true blue NHL forwards, D, and goalies did they land from 2005-2012 when Nill would have been the unquestioned leader?

AA, Nyquist, Tatar, Franzen, Grigorenko (who got hurt). Who else?
On the back end... Kronner, Fischer (maybe, but still, bad luck), Brendan Smith?
Goalie? Mrazek (headcase), Jimmy Howard.

The Wings fell off because their drafting was bad for a decade plus, not because Tyler Wright.

 

[Axel Sandy Pelikan]

Detroit completely forgot the most important part, acquire elite talent phase. Which leads us to the purgatory phase. Signing veteran players that are just good enough to keep us out of the bottom of the league, not good enough to consistently make the playoffs.

Rebuilding sometimes takes a few tries. Colorado had Duchene and O'Reilly, and it didn't workout so they had to tank a few more years to get Mackinnon/Rantanen/Makar. A core that is good enough to consistently win a cup.
Tampa got Stamkos/Kucherov/Point/Hedman
Florida got Barkov/Ekblad/Huberdeau
Toronto had Kessel and then Matthews/Marner/Nylander
Pittsburgh got Crosby and Malkin
Washington got Ovechkin and Backstrom
Edmonton got Mcdavid/Draisaitl/RNH

Seider is elite. Larkin and Raymond are legit first liners but none of them are good enough to be on this list as core pieces on a contender.

Raymond three years into his career. 57,45,72.
Huberdeau 31,28,54

How exactly is Jonathan Huberdeau an elite piece and Lucas Raymond not?

Toronto landed Kessel via trade and gave up Schenn + Hamilton to make it happen.
Toronto has one more playoff series victory than Detroit since 2016. Detroit hasn't made the playoffs since 2016.

Edmonton finally broke through to the Finals a full decade after selecting McDavid.

It took Tampa about 8 years from getting Stamkos and Hedman followed by the LUCK of selecting Kucherov in the 2nd and Point in the 3rd while adding Palat in the 7th and Tyler Johnson from UDFA.

The only true "suck until we happen to be good" were the actual unique situations where they truly did suck until they landed superstars in Pittsburgh and Washington. Pittsburgh was organically so bad they almost got relocated and needed the lockout lottery to get Sid. Washington fell on hard times after the late 90s and needed that spark.

Honestly, I think the Wings have elite talent and when you get anything beyond passengers on other lines, you'll see that Larkin is still way better than you think, Seider will become a mega-stud and Raymond still has a load of ceiling left. They've been playing incredibly well with other teams knowing that a Veleno-Rasmussen-Hirose line wasn't gonna punish them. Or gifting ice time to Holl, Hagg, Biega, Stetcher, Daley, Bowey, essentially led to them being caved in repeatedly. While the goalies were all headcase sieves.

And oh, another "lotto suck until we're good"... Chicago was truly awful under Dollar Bill Wirtz. They came up when he died and his son Rocky stopped being a massive chode and actually allowed people to run the team.

 

[Henkka]

I mean... not really. How many true blue NHL forwards, D, and goalies did they land from 2005-2012 when Nill would have been the unquestioned leader?

AA, Nyquist, Tatar, Franzen, Grigorenko (who got hurt). Who else?
On the back end... Kronner, Fischer (maybe, but still, bad luck), Brendan Smith?
Goalie? Mrazek (headcase), Jimmy Howard.

The Wings fell off because their drafting was bad for a decade plus, not because Tyler Wright.

I've seen many relative ratings versus draft picks height from 2000-2013, and it was Top10 drafting versus other organizations. Like, there was not maybe a superstar after Pavel and Z, but it wasn't bad either.

Biggest problem was traded 1st round picks in the success window. Those lower round picks were mostly great vs. average.

Others were worse.

On Wright era, they only got Larkin, as a bit of lucky.

 

[Axel Sandy Pelikan]

I'd like to see a trade for Rutger McGroarty. Veleno Berggren and Wallinder? He apparently wants a trade and is unproven also trading to another conference could lower the price?

Fine, I guess. But moreso because I am of the opinion that Veleno and Berggren are nothing speical and while Wallinder might be good, he's still a ways away.

I'm fine not trading for McGroarty tho.

 

[lilidk]

Detroit completely forgot the most important part, acquire elite talent phase. Which leads us to the purgatory phase. Signing veteran players that are just good enough to keep us out of the bottom of the league, not good enough to consistently make the playoffs.

Rebuilding sometimes takes a few tries. Colorado had Duchene and O'Reilly, and it didn't workout so they had to tank a few more years to get Mackinnon/Rantanen/Makar. A core that is good enough to consistently win a cup.
Tampa got Stamkos/Kucherov/Point/Hedman
Florida got Barkov/Ekblad/Huberdeau
Toronto had Kessel and then Matthews/Marner/Nylander
Pittsburgh got Crosby and Malkin
Washington got Ovechkin and Backstrom
Edmonton got Mcdavid/Draisaitl/RNH

Seider is elite. Larkin and Raymond are legit first liners but none of them are good enough to be on this list as core pieces on a contender.

There are couple things I disagree.
Florida was bad until end of last season and suddenly they won cup.
Vegas in their first season was built by 2-3 liners , nothing special and went to finals.
Yzerman trying build something similar to those 2 teams, I just hope our youth is patient with what he's trying to do.

 

[Henkka]

Florida reminded me a lot of 90's Red Wings...

At 2020 season, they were at 92-point pace (early exit)
At 2021 season, they were at 115-point pace (shortened corona season, early exit vs. Tampa)
At 2022 season, they were 122-point team winning President's Trophy
At 2023 season, they went to lose SC Finals

Those strong years before finding a balance, reminded a lot of 1993-96 Red Wings failures.

 

[OgeeOgelthorpe]

I'd like to see a trade for Rutger McGroarty. Veleno Berggren and Wallinder? He apparently wants a trade and is unproven also trading to another conference could lower the price?

Berggren Veleno and a 2nd.

Or Berggren Veleno and DET swaps 1sts with WPG if we’re lower in the standings. WPG should be around 17-22 at the draft while Detroit looks poised for 11th.

 

[Henkka]

Just Veleno and maybe a pick.

No need to add Berggren. That guy belongs to our lineup.

 

[Steve Yzerlland]

Florida reminded me a lot of 90's Red Wings...

At 2020 season, they were at 92-point pace (early exit)
At 2021 season, they were at 115-point pace (shortened corona season, early exit vs. Tampa)
At 2022 season, they were 122-point team winning President's Trophy
At 2023 season, they went to lose SC Finals

Those strong years before finding a balance, reminded a lot of 1993-96 Red Wings failures.

Maybe record wise. Talent wise the 90's wings destroy them.

 

[Frobbo]

Regarding the state of the RW rebuild think a bit of the Minnesota Wild. I am not a fan of either team but I am more familiar with each than I am of most of the other teams. There are a lot of equivilancies between the two roster's pipelines/youth. Some favor the RWs some the Wild.
Larkin/Kaprizov
Wallstadt/Cossa-Augustine
Ohgren/Kasper
Boldy/Raymond
Faber/Seider
Z Buim/ASP
Heidt/MBN
Rossi/Dcat?
Danielson/Yurov

There is no equivilant for Ed but Mn is going to open $14 million in cap space next year. My point is nobody is saying how great a job Guerin is doing in Minnesota. He is making the playoffs (usually) and building for the future while SY is... Barely keeping up with Guerin is faint praise IMO.

 

[rangersblues]

Biggest problem is playing in the Atlantic Division in the Eastern Conference. Pretty well any team able to make the playoffs has to be a Stanley Cup contender - Florida 8th place in 2023 and a Stanley Cup finalist. It's been a long grind to get there from where we were.

I did question a couple of FA signings, namely Copp and Holl. But those were relatively small potatoes. He still needs to somehow land a big impact player but I think the core is there. Comparing us to Florida is fine but where is our Matthew Tkachuk coming from? And Larkin isn't Barkov yet.

 

[Pavels Dog]

Regarding the state of the RW rebuild think a bit of the Minnesota Wild. I am not a fan of either team but I am more familiar with each than I am of most of the other teams. There are a lot of equivilancies between the two roster's pipelines/youth. Some favor the RWs some the Wild.
Larkin/Kaprizov
Wallstadt/Cossa-Augustine
Ohgren/Kasper
Boldy/Raymond
Faber/Seider
Z Buim/ASP
Heidt/MBN
Rossi/Dcat?
Danielson/Yurov

There is no equivilant for Ed but Mn is going to open $14 million in cap space next year. My point is nobody is saying how great a job Guerin is doing in Minnesota. He is making the playoffs (usually) and building for the future while SY is... Barely keeping up with Guerin is faint praise IMO.

There’s also no ”when do we start questioning the Guerinplan?” threads on main, and no one litigates their entire build if they sign a player.

Overall I agree there are similarities, however Detroit’s got a bit more in the pipeline (you don’t even mention Danielson for example), and are building a bit more from the ground up. Imo if Detroit had a player like Kaprizov fans wouldn’t be okay with the results so far.

 

[FriendlyGhost92]

This, so far, has been the first offseason I feel we have regressed instead of moving forward.

I'm torn on it.

On one hand we made a bunch of mediocre signings. On the other hand we didn't sign anybody for more than 2 years, which prevents bad contracts and probably signals a youth movement of a loaded prospect pool.

... But realistically, ASP is 2 years away and what the f*** is that RHD?

 

[AD1066]

Poor lottery luck followed by mediocre FA signings that made us a bubble team with no clear path forward.

We're lacking the kind of elite talent needed to make a deep Cup run, IMO, both on the roster and in the pipeline. Larkin is ideally a 2C on a true contender. Like a rocket without enough thrust, we're still on an upward trajectory, but I don't see us reaching the necessary heights without rebuilding and relaunching.

Otherwise our best hope is becoming a well-coached PITA team like Boston, that doesn't have a ton of elite talent but is a nightmare to play against. Which may very well be the plan, with guys like Danielson, Kasper, and MBN.