Why is Detroit still so mediocre?

[LeProspector]

After tonight’s loss, it made me think - the Red Wings are so mediocre. They have little promising high end prospects in their pipeline and what they have on their roster is so mediocre. You don’t win meaningful games with Lucas Raymond as your teams best player, DeBrincat is a small one dimensional scorer who is way too hot and cold to be a staple player for a playoff team.

I have to ask the question, because they have been sooo mediocre since Lindstrom left - And that was over 10 years ago now, why are they still in purgatory after so long?

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[nbwingsfan]

After tonight’s loss, it made me think - the Red Wings are so mediocre. They have little promising high end prospects in their pipeline and what they have on their roster is so mediocre. You don’t win meaningful games with Lucas Raymond as your teams best player, DeBrincat is a small one dimensional scorer who is way too hot and cold to be a staple player for a playoff team.

I have to ask the question, because they have been sooo mediocre since Lindstrom left - And that was over 10 years ago now, why are they still in purgatory after so long?

What a new and entirely original thread!

Also this is news to me that Seider, Ed and Raymond are finished products and that ASP isn’t an elite prospect


To add: Raymond would be right around the highest scoring player on Dallas, LA and Carolina… are they not winning meaningful games?

 

[majormajor]

If you have a good defense and goaltending, then you can do well with Raymond as your top forward and Debrincat on the 2nd line.

But they've gone with bargain bin goalies and, at least from my outsider perspective, the pro scouting on D-men has been atrocious - Chiarot, Petry, Holl, Gustafsson. That's brutal.

That's why they're not very good right now. If you want a longer explanation of why they haven't been good in 10 years, then you'd have to get into why Ken Holland spent down the value in the club until they might as well have been a 90s era expansion team. That's really a different question.

 

[tabness]

all part of the plan to get to mediocrity the past few years so we could have draft picks right in the middle of the round and pick players like ASP

 

[SirloinUB]

At this point if the rebuild 2 of yzerman drafted players have played a full season.


For better or worse they are patiently slow playing the f*** out of this rebuild

 

[ToDavid]

Babe new Detroit sucks thread dropped.

 

[Just Linda]

Bad luck at the draft and players that looked great didn't end up being great.

Larkin looked like he could be a great centre but turned out to be a really good player instead.

Seider looked like he could be the next Hedman type elite d, he ended up being a good but not elite player.

If those 2 guys turned out as many thought they would have, Detroit builds around them. Instead it's the weird mix of great d prospects and a middling team that can't acquire better than Larkin at centre because they are too good to be bad but can't win because they are too bad to be good.

 

[CallMeShaft]

I'm not sure we need another 'shit on Detroit' thread on the main boards.

 

[centipede2233]

If you have a good defense and goaltending, then you can do well with Raymond as your top forward and Debrincat on the 2nd line.

But they've gone with bargain bin goalies and, at least from my outsider perspective, the pro scouting on D-men has been atrocious - Chiarot, Petry, Holl, Gustafsson. That's brutal.

That's why they're not very good right now. If you want a longer explanation of why they haven't been good in 10 years, then you'd have to get into why Ken Holland spent down the value in the club until they might as well have been a 90s era expansion team. That's really a different question.

And to accelerate those moves, he gave hronek and walman away. Yzerman has really been underwelming in Detroit. And I am being generous saying that.

 

[Rowlet]

They picked at bad times

 

[FissionFire]

Without premium draft picks to accelerate a rebuild you have to take the patient approach as players develop. Lots of people forget he hasn’t been in Detroit as long as it seems. He only got hired in 2019. He’s picked 6th, 4th, 6th+15th, 8th, 9th+17th, and 15th in that span. Generally you need a top 2-3 pick to get a stud player. So far his picks have looked good with no clear misses. They’ve drafted great in the 1st round. You’d hope for more hits in later rounds that would be my biggest gripe. When you don’t get a chance to pick a franchise level talent in the draft, you won’t have a fast rebuild.

Just picture how some of the “good” rebuilds would look without their top 3 picks in that same span:

Anaheim without MacTavish, Carlsson, or Sennecke

Chicago without Dach, Bedard, or Levshunov

Montreal without Slafkovsky

New Jersey without Jack Hughes and Nemec

Ottawa without Stutzle

San Jose without Celebrini

Take those players off those teams and swap in someone drafted in the 4-10 range and suddenly their rebuilds look far less exciting and promising.

 

[majormajor]

Bad luck at the draft and players that looked great didn't end up being great.

Larkin looked like he could be a great centre but turned out to be a really good player instead.

Seider looked like he could be the next Hedman type elite d, he ended up being a good but not elite player.

If those 2 guys turned out as many thought they would have, Detroit builds around them. Instead it's the weird mix of great d prospects and a middling team that can't acquire better than Larkin at centre because they are too good to be bad but can't win because they are too bad to be good.

I don't agree with this analysis. Teams move up and down in many different ways that aren't just about what their draft position is. They can find better players than Larkin. Seider might be one of them, he can still get better. We don't know.

And the pro scouting is hugely important. They would solidly be a playoff team right now if they, say, had a D group of

Walman - Seider
Edvinsson - Fabbro
Dillon - Kovacevic

instead of

Chiarot - Seider
Edvinsson - Johansson
Gustafsson - Holl

That's just bad pro scouting.

 

[FissionFire]

I don't agree with this analysis. Teams move up and down in many different ways that aren't just about what their draft position is. They can find better players than Larkin. Seider might be one of them, he can still get better. We don't know.

And the pro scouting is hugely important. They would solidly be a playoff team right now if they, say, had a D group of

Walman - Seider
Edvinsson - Fabbro
Dillon - Kovacevic

instead of

Chiarot - Seider
Edvinsson - Johansson
Gustafsson - Holl

That's just bad pro scouting.

It’s hard to properly evaluate the pro scouts when the recently fired coach was so poor at getting good results from. While I don’t think their pro scouting is great, I don’t think it’s nearly as bad as Lalonde made it appear.

 

[centipede2233]

I don't agree with this analysis. Teams move up and down in many different ways that aren't just about what their draft position is. They can find better players than Larkin. Seider might be one of them, he can still get better. We don't know.

And the pro scouting is hugely important. They would solidly be a playoff team right now if they, say, had a D group of

Walman - Seider
Edvinsson - Fabbro
Dillon - Kovacevic

instead of

Chiarot - Seider
Edvinsson - Johansson
Gustafsson - Holl

That's just bad pro scouting.

Yup. Take Montreal and they just acquired a good bottom pairing RD in carrier. Or Armstrong in stlouis acquired cam Fowler whose found success. Add those 2 players for holl and gustaffson is an excellent start.

 

[majormajor]

It’s hard to properly evaluate the pro scouts when the recently fired coach was so poor at getting good results from. While I don’t think their pro scouting is great, I don’t think it’s nearly as bad as Lalonde made it appear.

You can't blame Lalonde for certain players playing poorly in Detroit when those same players were playing poorly before they were in Detroit.

 

[EXTRAS]

Bad luck at the draft and players that looked great didn't end up being great.

Larkin looked like he could be a great centre but turned out to be a really good player instead.

Seider looked like he could be the next Hedman type elite d, he ended up being a good but not elite player.

If those 2 guys turned out as many thought they would have, Detroit builds around them. Instead it's the weird mix of great d prospects and a middling team that can't acquire better than Larkin at centre because they are too good to be bad but can't win because they are too bad to be good.

I'd say seider is ahead of where hedman was in his first 4 seasons. Seider still has potential to be a hedman. But Detroit also have edvinsson and ASP to potentially hit that super high level too.

 

[Hacketts]

The Detroit Red Wings’ journey to mediocrity is a bit of a story of a great franchise’s downfall, and it’s a tough pill for many long-time fans to swallow. For a long time, the Red Wings were the gold standard for sustained excellence, fueled by a mix of homegrown talent and savvy management. They dominated the 1990s and early 2000s, winning four Stanley Cups between 1997 and 2008. This was a period that set the bar high, with stars like Steve Yzerman, Nicklas Lidstrom, Pavel Datsyuk, and Henrik Zetterberg.

But after 2008, things started to slide. They weren’t getting any younger, and the salary cap era, along with draft missteps, started to take its toll. And much like other great sports cities, the fall from the top is brutal. Detroit sports, as a whole, have felt this painful transition. The Lions have long been the embodiment of underachievement in the NFL, and the Tigers, despite some good years, have been fairly lackluster. The Pistons, once the pride of the city in the early 2000s with their "Grit and Grind" mantra, have also struggled to regain their former glory.

The Red Wings’ mediocrity is also a reflection of their history. They used to draft and develop stars, but that was before the current era of salary caps and instant gratification in the NHL. The ability to sustain long-term success was built on consistently drafting well, something that Detroit hasn’t done as effectively over the past decade. Their struggles in developing high-end talent or landing impact players have left them floundering in the middle of the pack, with brief glimpses of hope but never the sustained excellence they had in the past.

They also have this odd, frustrating place in the hockey world, where they’re too good to tank for high picks, but too inconsistent to be a legitimate contender. As you pointed out with Raymond and DeBrincat, there’s some talent there, but they’re not franchise-altering players. The fact that their best players are still middle-of-the-road in a league with game-changers is telling of how far they've fallen.

But I think it goes deeper than just a lack of high-end talent. Detroit has always been a city defined by grit and toughness, whether it’s in hockey or other sports. The Red Wings’ glory years were built on a certain kind of mentality, not just skill. The problem now is that this identity is gone. The roster doesn’t have the same competitive edge or resilience that defined their best years, and the current management hasn't found the right mix of talent and leadership to ignite a rebuild that’s actually successful. The leadership, from the front office down to the ice, seems to lack that bite that Detroit sports used to be known for.

Unfortunately, Detroit’s biggest fear right now is becoming the “great mediocre team,” where they’re stuck in no-man's land: not good enough to contend but too good to tank properly. It’s that strange purgatory where you’re not sinking low enough to get the top-tier talent, but you're also not high enough to make a legitimate push for a championship. It’s a trap that a lot of sports cities with rich histories of success find themselves in. When you’ve been great for so long, the fall to mediocrity is hard to deal with.

So, what happens next? The Red Wings need a major shake-up, something that goes beyond just trading a player here or drafting another prospect there. They need a complete reset in terms of both culture and structure. Without that, they risk becoming a footnote in NHL history — a franchise that could have been great but couldn’t get out of the mediocrity loop. It’s a tough reality to face, but it’s where they stand right now.

 

[Pavels Dog]

Are the mods ever going to do anything about the fact 90% of main board traffic is Detroit/Yzerman discussion?

 

[FissionFire]

The Detroit Red Wings’ journey to mediocrity is a bit of a story of a great franchise’s downfall, and it’s a tough pill for many long-time fans to swallow. For a long time, the Red Wings were the gold standard for sustained excellence, fueled by a mix of homegrown talent and savvy management. They dominated the 1990s and early 2000s, winning four Stanley Cups between 1997 and 2008. This was a period that set the bar high, with stars like Steve Yzerman, Nicklas Lidstrom, Pavel Datsyuk, and Henrik Zetterberg.

But after 2008, things started to slide. They weren’t getting any younger, and the salary cap era, along with draft missteps, started to take its toll. And much like other great sports cities, the fall from the top is brutal. Detroit sports, as a whole, have felt this painful transition. The Lions have long been the embodiment of underachievement in the NFL, and the Tigers, despite some good years, have been fairly lackluster. The Pistons, once the pride of the city in the early 2000s with their "Grit and Grind" mantra, have also struggled to regain their former glory.

The Red Wings’ mediocrity is also a reflection of their history. They used to draft and develop stars, but that was before the current era of salary caps and instant gratification in the NHL. The ability to sustain long-term success was built on consistently drafting well, something that Detroit hasn’t done as effectively over the past decade. Their struggles in developing high-end talent or landing impact players have left them floundering in the middle of the pack, with brief glimpses of hope but never the sustained excellence they had in the past.

They also have this odd, frustrating place in the hockey world, where they’re too good to tank for high picks, but too inconsistent to be a legitimate contender. As you pointed out with Raymond and DeBrincat, there’s some talent there, but they’re not franchise-altering players. The fact that their best players are still middle-of-the-road in a league with game-changers is telling of how far they've fallen.

But I think it goes deeper than just a lack of high-end talent. Detroit has always been a city defined by grit and toughness, whether it’s in hockey or other sports. The Red Wings’ glory years were built on a certain kind of mentality, not just skill. The problem now is that this identity is gone. The roster doesn’t have the same competitive edge or resilience that defined their best years, and the current management hasn't found the right mix of talent and leadership to ignite a rebuild that’s actually successful. The leadership, from the front office down to the ice, seems to lack that bite that Detroit sports used to be known for.

Unfortunately, Detroit’s biggest fear right now is becoming the “great mediocre team,” where they’re stuck in no-man's land: not good enough to contend but too good to tank properly. It’s that strange purgatory where you’re not sinking low enough to get the top-tier talent, but you're also not high enough to make a legitimate push for a championship. It’s a trap that a lot of sports cities with rich histories of success find themselves in. When you’ve been great for so long, the fall to mediocrity is hard to deal with.

So, what happens next? The Red Wings need a major shake-up, something that goes beyond just trading a player here or drafting another prospect there. They need a complete reset in terms of both culture and structure. Without that, they risk becoming a footnote in NHL history — a franchise that could have been great but couldn’t get out of the mediocrity loop. It’s a tough reality to face, but it’s where they stand right now.

This reads like ChatGTP

 

[PullHard]

The Detroit Red Wings’ journey to mediocrity is a bit of a story of a great franchise’s downfall, and it’s a tough pill for many long-time fans to swallow. For a long time, the Red Wings were the gold standard for sustained excellence, fueled by a mix of homegrown talent and savvy management. They dominated the 1990s and early 2000s, winning four Stanley Cups between 1997 and 2008. This was a period that set the bar high, with stars like Steve Yzerman, Nicklas Lidstrom, Pavel Datsyuk, and Henrik Zetterberg.

But after 2008, things started to slide. They weren’t getting any younger, and the salary cap era, along with draft missteps, started to take its toll. And much like other great sports cities, the fall from the top is brutal. Detroit sports, as a whole, have felt this painful transition. The Lions have long been the embodiment of underachievement in the NFL, and the Tigers, despite some good years, have been fairly lackluster. The Pistons, once the pride of the city in the early 2000s with their "Grit and Grind" mantra, have also struggled to regain their former glory.

The Red Wings’ mediocrity is also a reflection of their history. They used to draft and develop stars, but that was before the current era of salary caps and instant gratification in the NHL. The ability to sustain long-term success was built on consistently drafting well, something that Detroit hasn’t done as effectively over the past decade. Their struggles in developing high-end talent or landing impact players have left them floundering in the middle of the pack, with brief glimpses of hope but never the sustained excellence they had in the past.

They also have this odd, frustrating place in the hockey world, where they’re too good to tank for high picks, but too inconsistent to be a legitimate contender. As you pointed out with Raymond and DeBrincat, there’s some talent there, but they’re not franchise-altering players. The fact that their best players are still middle-of-the-road in a league with game-changers is telling of how far they've fallen.

But I think it goes deeper than just a lack of high-end talent. Detroit has always been a city defined by grit and toughness, whether it’s in hockey or other sports. The Red Wings’ glory years were built on a certain kind of mentality, not just skill. The problem now is that this identity is gone. The roster doesn’t have the same competitive edge or resilience that defined their best years, and the current management hasn't found the right mix of talent and leadership to ignite a rebuild that’s actually successful. The leadership, from the front office down to the ice, seems to lack that bite that Detroit sports used to be known for.

Unfortunately, Detroit’s biggest fear right now is becoming the “great mediocre team,” where they’re stuck in no-man's land: not good enough to contend but too good to tank properly. It’s that strange purgatory where you’re not sinking low enough to get the top-tier talent, but you're also not high enough to make a legitimate push for a championship. It’s a trap that a lot of sports cities with rich histories of success find themselves in. When you’ve been great for so long, the fall to mediocrity is hard to deal with.

So, what happens next? The Red Wings need a major shake-up, something that goes beyond just trading a player here or drafting another prospect there. They need a complete reset in terms of both culture and structure. Without that, they risk becoming a footnote in NHL history — a franchise that could have been great but couldn’t get out of the mediocrity loop. It’s a tough reality to face, but it’s where they stand right now.

chatgpt has nothing on you

 

[Bank Shot]

That's why they're not very good right now. If you want a longer explanation of why they haven't been good in 10 years, then you'd have to get into why Ken Holland spent down the value in the club until they might as well have been a 90s era expansion team. That's really a different question.

I'd like to know why Yzerman is building the team like he's a clone of Ken Holland?

 

[Silky Johnson]

I'm not sure we need another 'shit on Detroit' thread on the main boards.

There are never enough "shit on Detroit" threads...

 

[dirtydanglez]

thats how stevie y built it. it goes to show that great players dont always make the best coaches or gm's. the joe sakic's are rare.