Four years into a Herculean labor, Detroit Red Wings general manager Steve Yzerman offered a frank evaluation on how the rebuild has progressed.
“It’s gone OK,” he said Friday, a day after the Wings finished 35-37-10 and a week after the Wings were eliminated from playoff contention for a seventh straight year. “I would love to be further ahead in the process.
“I started out four years ago saying it’s going to take time, we’re going to have to be patient. We are trying to draft well. We have been able to accumulate more draft picks. Time will tell if we have drafted well. It is just a slow process. I would love to sit here and say we are thrilled with where we are at, and how things have gone through four seasons. I have been been pleased with some of the development of our draft prospects, and others have taken longer, or haven’t quite turned out at this point to what we had hoped, but that’s OK.”
Yzerman’s assessment reflects how challenging it is to build a competitive team, especially with having drafted no higher than fourth — and that was only once — in the years since the Wings last made the playoffs in 2016. They have 5% odds of winning this year’s draft lottery on May 8, after finishing 24th in the standings, and 5.4% odds of drafting at No. 2. (Picking first or second would give them access to Connor Bedard or Michigan’s Adam Fantilli.)
The Wings have focused on drafting and developing as the foundation of the rebuild, and added a couple of building blocks two years ago in defenseman Moritz Seider (No. 6, 2019) and forward Lucas Raymond (No. 4, 2020). Defenseman Simon Edvinsson (No. 6, 2021) and Marco Kasper (No. 8, 2022) project to push for spots next season. Michael Rasmussen (No. 9, 2017) was having a strong season when he suffered a season-ending injury Feb. 25.
But other picks have not worked out: It’s been clear for a couple of years that the Wings should have taken defenseman Quinn Hughes at No. 6 in 2018, instead of forward Filip Zadina, who has yet to demonstrate he belongs in the lineup. The first-round picks from 2015 (Evgeny Svechnikov) and 2016 (Dennis Cholowski) washed out of the organization.
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Yzerman took over a mess when he was named GM on April 19, 2019, inheriting a team that would go on to win just 17 games the following season, before the pandemic shut things down with 11 games left. He focused on drafting, and made some trades that worked out well, like acquiring Robby Fabbri. Last offseason, Yzerman took advantage of a rich free agent market to add forwards David Perron and Andrew Copp, and defensemen Ben Chiarot and Olli Määttä. Goaltender Ville Husso was brought in via a trade, using some of the draft capital Yzerman had acquired.
Yzerman acquired two first-round picks and a second-round pick when he traded Tyler Bertuzzi and Filip Hronek at this year’s deadline. Bertuzzi and Jakub Vrana, who also was traded, were projected to score 30 goals each when the season began, but for a variety of reasons, neither was available much. Now Yzerman will have to find a way to boost the Wings offensively, an area they really struggled this season.
“We’ll look at the free agent market to potentially replace some of the offense,” Yzerman said. “I hope within our team that we get more production out of some of our younger players. If we can take a guy from eight or nine goals to 14 or 15, if younger guys play a little bit bigger role and also contribute a little bit more on the offensive side, that will help. We have to score more. We have to be a more physical team, a more competitive team. That doesn’t necessarily mean I have to go out and get somebody 6-6, 250, to go out and beat people up. You have to win puck battles, you have to block shots, win faceoffs. All those little things make a team more competitive and we have to improve in all those areas.
“But the players that we moved at the deadline, I knew at that time there would be holes in our roster and I am prepared to deal with that. And truthfully, I might not be able to address all of those in this offseason. It might not be possible. Some of our young guys might not be ready and players in free agency might not be available, but it’s still things that had to be done, whether it was at the deadline or this coming offseason.”
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The players who are pending unrestricted free agents now might be re-signed by their current teams by July 1 — and it’s not a particularly strong market.
“I look at the group and I believe there are players that would help us and I would like to sign,” Yzerman said. “The issue is, there are 31 other teams, and the list isn’t really that long. That makes it challenging.
“We’ll do the best we can to fill our roster. I still want to be a competitive team next year, I want guys that fit the position, the type of player, and maybe most importantly, the character of the person, that fits into our lineup. I’ll be active; how much I can accomplish, I don’t know. Last year there was a bigger group of players available in free agency. There’s not as big a group this year.”
In addition to offensive help, Yzerman needs a goaltender to back up Husso. Alex Nedeljkovic could be in play, if he is willing to take a pay cut from the $3 million he made each of the past two seasons.
Yzerman will look at trades — he could parlay an attractive package from one or more of the five picks he holds in the first two rounds this year and possibly turn that into a high-caliber player who can come in and help the Wings right away. Ultimately losing the last five games helped the Wings’ draft lottery odds, but players had spoken of what it would mean to at least finish .500. In the end, the Wings earned six points more this season than last. They are in a tough division, sharing space in the Atlantic with elite teams in the Boston Bruins, Toronto Maple Leafs and Tampa Bay Lightning. The Florida Panthers also made the playoffs this year. The Buffalo Sabres and Ottawa Senators have picked higher in the draft (the Sabres have two No. 1 picks in their lineup; the Senators, a No. 3 and a No. 4) and are ahead of the Wings in their rebuilds.
It’s why, as he nears his four-year anniversary, Yzerman kept coming back to OK.
“Where we sit here today from four years ago, I’m not disappointed at where we are at,” he said. “I guess I’m OK with it. But I intend to stick with the process, the plan. Nothing is going to dramatically change. We are going to continue to look for opportunities to expedite the process. That is difficult to do, but we will continue to do that.
“It’s an emotional roller coaster, for our fans, I understand that. Myself, included. There’s days you walk out of the rink and you’re like, I’m really happy with the way things are going. And then two weeks later you walk out of the rink and you’re like, oh my god, there’s no end in sight. What I try to do is just stick with it. I look at the big picture — I’m confident we’re going in the right direction.”
Contact Helene St. James at hstjames@freepress.com. Follow her on Twitter @helenestjames.
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Her latest book, “On the Clock: Behind the Scenes with the Detroit Red Wings at the NHL Draft,” is available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Triumph Books. Personalized copies available via her e-mail.