After a disastrous season by his Detroit Red Wings, GM Steve Yzerman's future is up for debate. If he returns, Adam Proteau lists three minimums he should meet during the off-season and beginning of next season.
After a devastating late-season collapse saw them plummet out of a playoff spot, the Detroit Red Wings' future under GM Steve Yzerman has been called into question.
And rightfully so. Yzerman has had seven years on the job running things in Detroit, and the Red Wings have now missed the playoffs for a full decade.
However, in a Thursday press conference, Yzerman spoke like a man who was coming back as GM next season, citing discussions with Red Wings owner Chris Ilitch about his future.
"I spoke with (Ilitch) a few days ago," Yzerman told reporters, including The Detroit News. "He and the entire ownership of the Ilitch family are very disappointed with the way the season played out. He continues to be extremely supportive of what we're trying to do here. We intend to have further conversations about our team and about our organization in the very near future."
From our point of view, the right thing Red Wings ownership could do is to move on from Yzerman, who simply has not produced the results teams need. Yzerman spoke Thursday of his ups and downs as a player, teaching him how to push through adversity and eventually win Stanley Cups. But it's been a different story for him as Red Wings GM.
That said, if he is coming back, there will have to be some absolute bare-minimums Yzerman and the Red Wings have to hit in the off-season and next season in the standings. Here they are.
Bare-Minimum No. 1: Detroit has to use virtually all of its salary cap space next year
This past season, the Red Wings spent about $84.3-million on their roster. That meant they left $11.2 million in cap space unspent. And that means Yzerman could've added talent that kept his Wings team in a playoff position, but he chose not to. That will be unacceptable if he's back next season.
It's not as if teams can carry over their unused cap space into subsequent seasons. So Yzerman must give his team its best chance at a playoff berth by spending to the cap ceiling and acquiring veteran NHLers who can put them over the top as a playoff contender.
If, at this time next season, Yzerman's Red Wings have millions in unspent cap space, he should be dismissed on the spot. He led them through the bulk of their rebuild, and if he can use his cap space on players who will make a positive difference, then he's shown he's still effective enough to stay past the rebuild.
Bare-Minimum No. 2: The Red Wings need to be in a playoff spot by American Thanksgiving – and they need to hold onto that playoff berth through the end of the year
As we should all know by now, if NHL teams aren't in a playoff spot by American Thanksgiving, they'll have a rough time making the playoffs. This season, three-quarters of the 16 playoff teams at Thanksgiving wound up earning a playoff berth.
And so, if the Red Wings aren't in a playoff position by the fourth Thursday of November next season, Yzerman should be dismissed.
Yes, you never can completely count out a team making a late-season surge into a playoff position. That happens, every year, to one team or another.
But the optics of the Red Wings being out of a playoff spot by Thanksgiving will be alarming to Detroit fans. And at that point, firing Yzerman will be the only thing that makes those aggrieved Wings fans happy again.
Bare-Minimum No. 3: The Wings have to come up with some type of generational talent through the draft
One of the areas the Red Wings have lacked is the foundational, high-end talent you always see on Cup-winning teams.
Yes, defenseman Moritz Seider qualifies as a generational player. And yes, forwards Lucas Raymond and Dylan Larkin are elite players.
But there's been no Red Wings equivalent of a Connor Bedard with the Chicago Blackhawks, a Nathan MacKinnon with the Colorado Avalanche or a Connor McDavid with the Edmonton Oilers.
And that's an issue Yzerman must try to solve.
With the Red Wings having the 16th-best odds of winning a draft lottery draw, their pick can only move as high as sixth overall. If they can trade into the top 10 or even top five, they can improve their chances of getting a truly elite core player. If that means packaging some of the future to do it, so be it.
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