The shock of the week in the hockey world is Steve Yzerman stepping down as the Detroit Red Wings general manager. It’s not a shock in the sense that many saw this move as possible, yet for it to come at this point in the offseason says a lot about the growing frustration that the ownership had with the “Yzerplan” and how he operated. 

The Red Wings are looking for a new GM, and it’s a great excuse for hockey people to start naming names. Some of the names thrown around include Chris Draper, Niklas Lidstrom, Brendan Shanahan, and other franchise icons. Admittedly, hiring one to replace Yzerman doesn’t seem like the right direction since the recent run showed the downsides. Instead, the Red Wings might take the opposite approach. 

This is a good opportunity for the Red Wings to bring in a younger GM, one who fits the Sonny Mehta, Mathieu Darche, or Ryan Johnson mold. It’s about bringing in a GM who operated differently and can take all types of data to build a contender. Ryan Martin checks off that box for the Red Wings as a younger hockey mind who has already interviewed for GM jobs around the NHL. 

Martin’s time in the Red Wings organization put him on the map. As the Grand Rapids Griffins GM, he built them into a perennial Calder Cup contender and won the title in 2017. In 16 years with the Red Wings, he climbed up the ladder from the scouting department to the assistant GM, and one with plenty of big team-building ideas as well. 

His time with the Griffins also made him look like one of the next young GMs in hockey. Martin was using analytics before many executives were, and more importantly, he was processing information the same way a lot of the new GMs in the NHL are. Teams are starting to look for their version of Eric Tulsky or Bill Zito, someone who takes data from all aspects of the game and then makes the right call. 

Martin returning to the Red Wings would be a feel-good story if it works, of course (if the fans can run out of patience with Yzerman, they’ll be quick to judge him as well). He can take a rebuilding team that’s staggered in recent years and get them over the hump.

Martin left the Griffins in 2021 and joined the Hartford Wolf Pack. He was their GM and the New York Rangers assistant, a much tougher task than the Griffins job. Martin joined a Wolf Pack team with only one playoff appearance since 2012-13 and made it competitive within a few seasons. 

In Martin’s second season as the GM, the Wolf Pack made the playoffs and reached the Atlantic Division Final. The next season was a rocky one, where Kris Knoblauch left the team midseason, and they backed their way into the playoffs, yet made it back to the Atlantic Division Final. What made these seasons impressive was that Martin was doing more with less. The Rangers didn’t give him much to work with, and he still made the right moves to make the Wolf Pack competitive. 

This was the final box to check off for Martin. To prove he was a great GM, it was important to show that he could win in multiple places, not just in Grand Rapids. His time in Hartford, paired with his time with USA Hockey, proved he can be a GM at the NHL level. 

The decline for the Rangers and the Wolf Pack started in the 2024-25 season. Both teams missed the playoffs, and it was seen at the time as an odd year for both teams. Anything that can go wrong did, and surely, both teams would bounce back. 

That season started to expose the weaknesses in both teams. For the Wolf Pack, and Martin specifically, it was the start of a two-year season that put his red flags on display, forcing teams to take a second look at him as this young GM on the rise. 

The big issue was his inability to find and maintain veteran talent. The prospects were put on an unfavorable timeline that didn’t help the AHL team, with Matt Rempe, Brett Berard, and Brennan Othmann getting called up even if they weren’t ready for the Rangers. That said, Martin struggled to add a boost with reliable veterans. 

It resulted in a 2025-26 season where the Wolf Pack had the worst record in the AHL. They lost Alex Belzile, Benoit-Olivier Groulx, and Jake Leschyshyn, three veterans who were pivotal in the past, and didn’t bring in enough players to make up for it. That falls on Martin, who put the prospects in an environment that was detrimental to their development. Ideally, Berard, Othmann, and Dylan Roobroeck have mentors on the ice who teach them how to play at the next level. Roobroeck took a step back, and both Berard and Othmann are no longer on the team. 

Grant Potulny, the head coach Martin hired in the 2024 offseason, took the fall. The problem is that Martin was the one who hired Potulny in the first place, a coach with a college background who wasn’t prepared for the AHL. Great GMs not only must put together a great roster, but they must also hire the right coaches and put together a great staff, something Martin struggled to do with the Wolf Pack. 

It’s a lingering issue from Yzerman’s tenure. He drafted well and developed young players for the Red Wings. However, he struggled to find the right coach, with two uninspiring hires, and he also failed to bring in elite outside talent, an issue that reared its ugly head every trade deadline. 

It’s a late GM search, yet the Red Wings will cast a wide net for their search. They have time to make this decision, and they’ll interview plenty of names both from within and outside the organization.

It shouldn’t surprise anyone if Martin is not only interviewed but also one of the final names in the search as well. He’s what the Red Wings are looking for and someone who spent years in the AHL, waiting for this opportunity. 

Along with Martin, the Red Wings might take a look at other AHL GMs. Evan Gold built the Providence Bruins into one of the best teams in the league, while Jason Spezza has learned plenty as the assistant to Kyle Dubas with the Pittsburgh Penguins. The AHL is the toughest league to coach and certainly one of the toughest to manage, so expect the Red Wings to take a close look at some of the big names around the league, along with Martin.