DETROIT — When Steve Yzerman arrived back in Detroit as Red Wings general manager in April 2019, the city dreamed about what might follow.
As a player, Yzerman had been the front man for a legendary era in team history — turning around the franchise after years of losing and leading it to three Stanley Cup titles as captain in 1997, 1998 and 2002.
So, when Yzerman left the Tampa Bay Lightning to return to Detroit’s front office, the expectations of what he could accomplish were nothing short of fantastical. He would once again revitalize the organization, returning it to the success that helped spawn the city’s “Hockeytown” moniker and delivering another championship.
His stature and that hope bought the organization some patience from its fans in what was still the beginning of an inevitably lengthy rebuild.
Patience has its limits, though. And six years later, those limits are being tested for Yzerman and the Red Wings.
This week begins the franchise’s centennial season, bringing with it all kinds of fanfare and celebration. The Red Wings unveiled special jerseys. They announced they will retire franchise icon Sergei Fedorov’s No. 91 in January in a long-anticipated honor. They even returned “Hockeytown” to their center-ice logo after omitting it from the design since leaving Joe Louis Arena in 2017.
But they still have yet to return to the playoffs, mired in a nine-year drought that is the longest in franchise history — and that now looms over their historic season.
“For me, it’s a team do-or-die type year,” veteran forward Andrew Copp said. “We have to make the playoffs. It’s our only goal. It’s our only focus. And anything short of that is going to be looked at as not good enough. And I don’t think we can be fearful of admitting that. I think we need to look at our goal straight in the eye, and everything we do from now until April is to make the playoffs.”
The question from the outside, though, is not just whether the Red Wings will make the playoffs. It’s also what could happen if they don’t.
Yzerman is a Red Wings legend, occupying rare air even among the city’s sports greats. He played his entire NHL career in Detroit, famous as much for his leadership as his Hall of Fame stature on the ice.
As a general manager, his rebuild has shown progress over his six years, albeit gradual, and there is no evidence that he’s on a “hot seat” — at least not in the typical sense.
At the same time, Detroit’s playoff drought is now tied for the third-longest in league history, an uncomfortable place for any franchise, executive or player.
Red Wings full-season results under Steve Yzerman
SeasonPoints
2024-25
86
2023-24
91
2022-23
80
2021-22
74
2020-21*
48
2019-20*
39
(*-Season shortened by COVID-19 pandemic)
The Red Wings have come close to the playoffs in each of the last two seasons. In 2023-24, their 91 points tied for the final wild-card spot, but they lost out to the Washington Capitals on a tiebreaker. Last season, a midyear coaching change saw Detroit roar back to life under new head coach Todd McLellan, miraculously getting back into playoff position by the end of February — only to collapse in March and miss the postseason by five points.
After that unraveling, the Red Wings finished last season with 86 points. It was the first time they had taken a step back in the standings since Yzerman took over, and the signs of frustration began to show. Detroit’s captain, Dylan Larkin, remarked at his year-end news conference that the team “didn’t gain any momentum from the trade deadline, and guys were kind of down about it” after Yzerman didn’t add any meaningful upgrades for the playoff chase.
Yzerman defended his approach at the deadline, saying his front office looked and hoped to improve the team, but that “there (were) no deals to bring in anyone of any significance that we really felt would make a difference — not just to make the playoffs this year, but to make us a better team in the long run, and to get us ultimately to where we’re going to go.”
Since he arrived, that has been one of Yzerman’s consistent messages: wanting to build a sustainable winner, not simply chase the closest or quickest path back to the playoffs.
“You can’t compete for the Stanley Cup, obviously, until you make the playoffs,” Yzerman said on the eve of this year’s training camp. “But our goal, again, is to be a team that can compete for a Stanley Cup. These rebuilds take time. How much time, I can’t really predict. Every one’s different.”
And in fairness, the Red Wings’ rebuild has yielded some positive results.
The Red Wings’ Lucas Raymond, left, Dylan Larkin, middle, and Moritz Seider are three key pieces to Detroit’s rebuild. (Dave Reginek / Getty Images)
In defenseman Moritz Seider and winger Lucas Raymond — Yzerman’s first two first-round draft picks — the team has a pair of established young stars. In Larkin, it has a veteran captain and No. 1 center. Patrick Kane and Alex DeBrincat are proven producers, with Kane in particular a clutch performer. The Red Wings also had two more young impact pieces burst onto the scene full-time last year: blueliner Simon Edvinsson and center Marco Kasper.
That core is a long way from the bare cupboard Yzerman inherited back in 2019, and to his credit, the Red Wings now have a firm foundation to build upon with more prospects on the way.
But without real, tangible results, you can only sell vision, process and future for so long — to fans and players alike.
Larkin, the team’s engine, hasn’t seen the playoffs since 2016, his first season in the league. He’ll turn 30 next summer, and his desperation to win after all these years is palpable. DeBrincat, Yzerman’s signature trade acquisition in Detroit, has just two years remaining on the contract he signed back in 2023. Kane, the future Hall of Fame winger who has now signed three consecutive one-year contracts with Detroit, will soon turn 37.
So, while Detroit and its deep farm system have more players on the way, the urgency around this team isn’t just a matter of external restlessness. There is unavoidable time pressure to win while some of these key pieces are in their prime — or still with the team at all.
The timing of this restless, critical season in Detroit is fascinating in its own right.
Just as all this make-or-break sentiment is reaching a boiling point, the Red Wings appear set to begin the season with three surprise rookies in their lineup.
Winger Michael Brandsegg-Nygård and defenseman Axel Sandin-Pellikka are first-round picks (from 2024 and 2023, respectively) who were expected to need a year in AHL Grand Rapids to develop this season but instead kicked the door down with their preseason performance. Forward Emmitt Finnie was a 2023 seventh-round pick who became the talk of training camp, first grabbing attention in Traverse City for his relentless motor and turning it into an opportunity on Detroit’s top forward line. A fourth rookie, 2023 first-round pick Nate Danielson, could also see time in Detroit after he returns from an injury sustained this preseason.
Time will tell if the three rookies breaking camp with the team are in for a short-term stay or longer. But in many ways, their sudden surge to the opening-night roster is a case in point that Detroit’s rebuild is still on the right track.
With the high stakes of the Red Wings’ NHL results this season, though, breaking in three new rookies — and the growing pains that come with them — adds a particularly interesting wrinkle.
Would it be more understandable (or acceptable) to miss out on the playoffs again if it happens with fresh faces in the fold, trending along the NHL learning curve? Will seeing the young players arrive make them feel more real than that nebulous “prospect” label, buying a bit more patience for all involved? Or is this season destined to be a referendum on Yzerman’s tenure regardless, because the roster will be even more his creation than ever before?
These questions likely can’t be answered in October without that strange blend of emotion and clarity that 82 games bring.
One thing, however, feels clear: If the Red Wings repeat the same story from their last two seasons — getting themselves to the cusp of the playoffs, only to collapse again in the season’s final two months — it’s hard to imagine another quiet offseason next summer.
At a minimum, calls for change to the roster or the front office would surely grow louder, and a third straight year playing out in the same way would offer credible backing.
That makes McLellan a key piece in all of this.
Red Wings head coach Todd McLellan aims to make his team tougher and more resilient. (Dave Reginek / Getty Images)
McLellan’s arrival last Christmas re-energized the locker room. He carries a booming presence, is battle-tested through 17 years of NHL head coach experience, and has all the feel and savvy that come with that.
Back in December, he quickly identified that the team looked mechanical, with players not trusting their instincts in a game that rarely rewards hesitation. So, at his first practice, he bluntly instructed his new team to “play f—ing hockey,” a quote that quickly became a rallying cry in the fan base.
More importantly, the players responded to it, winning their next seven games and adding another seven-game win streak soon after. They looked like a team transformed — until that familiar March meltdown.
There is no doubt that Detroit has to be mentally tougher and more resilient than it’s been in the past. McLellan identified those characteristics as a priority at the end of last season and brought it up again this fall in the early days of training camp.
“Sometimes you’ve got to win with your ‘B’ game,” McLellan said. “Sometimes you’ve got to find ways to hold leads. Sometimes you have to come back. It’s not always going to be rosy, and I think in those situations, we can do a better job.”
The Red Wings team that will take the ice Thursday night against Montreal has plenty of new faces, including goaltender John Gibson, wingers Mason Appleton and James van Riemsdyk, defensemen Jacob Bernard-Docker and Travis Hamonic and the aforementioned collection of rookies. But the group as a whole will still be judged on whether it has grown enough to withstand that kind of adversity and come out the other side.
If the Red Wings do that, it’ll be a whole lot easier to see the progress and keep the big picture in view. It may even result in the playoffs and some vindication.
But if they don’t, the gravity of that do-or-die mindset will be put to the test, raising difficult questions on what comes next.
After years of emphasizing the future under Yzerman, the Red Wings’ present has never felt more important.