How Steve Yzerman failed as general manager of the Red Wings

The Detroit Red Wings are at a low point in their storied franchise.

Having missed the past 10 postseasons, the Red Wings are simultaneously dealing with captain Dylan Larkin’s trade request (along with a laughably short list of preferred destinations), the longest postseason drought in franchise history and, as of July 15, a search for a new general manager as Steve Yzerman is officially stepping aside in the front office.

Over the course of seven seasons, the Yzerplan failed to deliver a single playoff appearance. The regime’s shortcomings in building a roster stuck out in three straight March collapses.

While Yzerman and company made some savvy moves, too many of the decisions he made with the newfound flexibility left Detroit where they are today. Here are a few of Yzerman’s decisions that contributed to the lack of sufficient progress towards a postseason appearance:

Yzerman’s free agent spending proved mostly fruitless

Detroit understandably scuffled over the course of Yzerman’s first three seasons as it was saddled by bloated contracts for underperforming players and a lack of prospects. The 2021-22 season offered fans a light at the end of the tunnel with Dylan Larkin scoring 30 goals for the first of what would be five-straight seasons, Moritz Seider winning the Calder Trophy for Rookie of the Year and Lucas Raymond putting forth a strong debut season of his own.

With Larkin’s contract coming due in 2023 and cap space to work with, Yzerman decided to get aggressive with the free agent market in 2022. However, the signings themselves proved to be more of quantity than of quality.

Yzerman paid up for Andrew Copp’s career-best 53 points, inking him to a five-year deal that carried a $5.63 million cap hit to be the team’s number two center behind Larkin. While he has at times performed admirably, he has yet to surpass 43 points in four years with Detroit and is better suited to a bottom-six role.

Likewise, the team picked up Ben Chiarot on a four-year deal worth $4.75 million per year. While they have frequently put him with Moritz Seider on the team’s top pairing, his analytics and eye test tell the story of someone playing a role far above his capacity. On top of that, Yzerman signed him for three MORE seasons starting next year at $3.85 million last season.

Other free agent busts include the three-year deal given to Justin Holl the following summer, who spent his final season with the Red Wings in the AHL. To course correct on Andrew Copp, he signed J.T. Compher to a five-year deal with a $5.1 million hit. Since a solid enough 48-point debut season, Compher has tumbled down the depth chart and has a combined 60 points in 158 games over the past two seasons. Worst of all, he has two years left on his contract.

Vladimir Tarasenko’s two-year deal worked out so poorly at the outside two seasons ago that the team traded him to Minnesota last summer for free only to watch him rebound with a 23 goal, 47 point season.

One free agency decision stands out above the rest, though.

Replacing Shayne Gostisbehere with Erik Gustafsson

Shayne Gostisbehere provided a dynamic presence on the team’s blue line that had been lacking for a long time in 2023-24. Yzerman signed him to a one-year deal for $4.13 million and watched him recapture his offensive stride while providing serviceable enough play defensively. Gostisbehere responded with 10 goals and 56 points, anchoring one of the most dynamic power plays in the NHL that season. His play at the end of the season nearly willed the team into the 2024 playoffs, but they fell short on a tiebreaker with Washington.

Instead of being brought back to build off that season, Detroit balked at Gostisbehere’s request for a three-year contract, so he took a pay cut to join the Carolina Hurricanes. With Gostisbehere's help, the Canes won the Stanley Cup this past season thanks to his 50 points in an injury-shortened 55 games.

In Gostisbehere’s place, the Red Wings signed Erik Gustafsson to a two-year deal worth a paltry $2 million a year. However, the adage of you get what you pay for proved true as Gustafsson proved a disaster defensively and only produced 18 points in 60 games in 2024-25. He spent all but two games in the AHL (clearing waivers just like Justin Holl) last season. For an extra $1.2 million in salary alone, the Red Wings could have likely made at least one postseason appearance while doing nothing else differently.

But the biggest culprit in Detroit’s lack of progress under Yzerman came before the free agent periods.

Yzerman failed to find talent with non marquee draft picks

For a plan that emphasized drafting and developing talent, Steve Yzerman’s front office did a remarkably poor job of doing just that. While they found genuine building blocks with top-six selections in Moritz Seider and Lucas Raymond, the team also had a heavy volume of draft picks that have failed to produce any value whatsoever.

In his first three drafts, Yzerman had seven second-round picks. Only 2019 pick Albert Johansson, a third-pairing defenseman, has even suited up in an NHL game. Antii Tuomisto (35th overall in 2019), now in Vegas, is the only player taken in the top 41 picks of his draft who hasn’t played a single NHL game. William Wallinder (32nd in 2020) is one of only two players taken in the first 39 picks of his draft who has yet to suit up in the NHL.

In all fairness, the NHL Draft is an exercise in throwing darts at a board, but the sheer volume of picks the team had in those drafts to get so little out of it is alarming. Players picked in the same round after Tuomisto in 2019 include Pyotr Kochetkov and Jackson LaCombe. In 2020, JJ Peterka, Brock Faber and Will Cuyle were selected after Detroit took Wallinder.

In those two drafts, only 17 of the 124 players taken in the first two rounds have yet to play an NHL game through the 2025-26 season. Yzerman’s front office drafted five of them. Conversely, 70 of those draft picks have played at least 100 NHL games, including 23 of the 62 second-round picks in those two drafts.

It is impossible to build through the draft without drafting well, and Yzerman’s staff hasn’t. While recent non-first round picks such as Emmitt Finnie, Trey Augustine and Max Plante are showing some promise, the fact remains that only five of the front office’s 44 draft choices outside of the first round from 2019-23 have played any NHL games.

There are other decisions Yzerman’s regime made that deserve their own space by itself due to their baffling nature before the dust even settled that I will get into in a future installment (don’t worry, I haven’t forgotten about Jake Walman).

Today's best reads

• What Steve Yzerman did right as general manager of the Red Wings
• The biggest losers in the Detroit Red Wings breakup saga
• The 3 best (and worst) moves of Steve Yzerman's tenure with the Red Wings
• Steve Yzerman's departure leaves Dylan Larkin holding the cards
• Steve Yzerman left his Red Wings' successor a mess to clean up, starting with Dylan Larkin

This article was originally published on octopusthrower.com as How Steve Yzerman failed as general manager of the Red Wings.