Where has close to a decade of rebuilding left the Detroit Red Wings?

It can be difficult to pinpoint the precise moment at which a rebuild started, and in this regard, the last decade or so of Detroit Red Wings hockey is no exception. 

You could say the rebuild began on May 31st, 2012 when four-time Stanley Cup Champion, seven-time Norris Trophy winner Nicklas Lidstrom announced his retirement. Then-general manager Ken Holland was using the phrase “rebuilding on the fly” by the summer of 2013. 

By 2017, with a twenty-five-year run of consecutive playoff appearances a full year removed, there could be no denying a rebuild was underway in Hockeytown. In 2019, Steve Yzerman returned to his hockey home from Tampa, replacing Holland (who would head west to Edmonton following a firing that was never referred to as such) as the architect of the rebuild.

The Detroit Red Wings underwent several key structural changes between their run of four Cups in eleven seasons and the onset of the rebuild. 

An unprecedented generation of players aged out of the organization: Lidstrom, Rafalski, Datsyuk, Zetterberg, Franzen, Holstrom, Draper, etc. 

The '08 Cup came in a salary cap world, but its implementation following the '04-05 lockout constitutes a major difference between three of Detroit’s four modern championships and the present state of affairs in the NHL. 

The Great Recession devastated Detroit and southeast Michigan, changing the city’s perception and, when combined with a drop-off in on-ice results, marking the end of the days when the league’s top free agents were eager to take a discount if it meant they could play in Detroit. 

The modernization of European scouting meant that the legendary Håkan Andersson could no longer be counted upon to steal elite talent from around Europe in the late rounds of the draft.

Where has all that left the Wings? To be brief, in a pickle.  After over a half decade in the wilderness, it has come time for Detroit to pull out of its rebuild. 

The appeal of rebuilding (especially for the executives overseeing the operation) is that it affords an organization a brief reprieve from the pressures of modern American sports. For a few seasons, as you strip your team down to the studs, lose on purpose, and accumulate future assets, just about any on-ice outcome is acceptable, and the occasional clip of a prospect scoring in a faraway junior league can be enough to placate your fan base, assuring them that all is going according to plan.

The problem with rebuilding is that at some point you have to move beyond that stage, and, unfortunately, there isn’t an obvious blueprint for doing so. Somewhere along the line, the water wings come off, and a team’s prospects enter their sink-or-swim era.

Last summer, Yzerman took a major step toward exiting the “anything goes” phase by making the Wings a major player in free agency. 

Detroit brought in Andrew Copp, Ben Chiarot, David Perron, Dominik Kubalik, and Ville Husso—all of them acquired because they could help make Detroit a better team right away. Yzerman finally cut loose head coach Jeff Blashill, who had the misfortune of coaching the team through the depths of the rebuild, and brought in Derek Lalonde and his Tampa Bay-championship experience to oversee the way forward.

The decision to take a step forward didn’t come without a cost. By stepping on the accelerator, Yzerman took his team out of the race to the bottom for the top pick in a draft oozing with elite talent. With their reinforcements, the Wings were unlikely to be in contention for Connor Bedard, Adam Fantilli, Matvei Michkov, or Leo Carlsson.

That move teases at the central question of Detroit’s rebuild: Can the Wings return to true Stanley Cup contention without bottoming out to the tune of multiple lottery picks? 

Red Wing fans have been crushed by the sense that the NHL’s Draft Lottery has a cruel place in its dark heart for Detroit, and this isn’t totally unfounded. 

Between 2017 and 2023, Detroit dropped at least one spot in the lottery every year. However, during that span, the Wings only finished in the league’s bottom three once (ending up dead last in 2020 and rewarded with…the fourth pick (i.e. the worst available to the league’s last placed finisher under the lottery system at the time)). So, for Detroit, the challenge of pulling out of a prolonged rebuild is compounded by the fact that they won’t have the luxury of doing so with multiple top picks on board. 

Before reverting to doom and accepting that such a feat is impossible though, I think it’s worth considering two different tankers from recent years as reference points.

As the first reference point, consider the last five years of New York Rangers hockey. 

In February of 2018, Rangers management sent a letter of warning to their fans, advising them to brace for a forthcoming rebuild. In 2019, New York moved up in the lottery to select Kaapo Kakko with the draft’s second overall pick and signed winger Artemi Panarin, the belle of the summer’s unrestricted free agency ball. In 2020, the Rangers won the lottery again, this time earning the chance to select Alexis Lafreniere with the number one overall pick.

In short, New York caught all the right breaks to turbocharge its rebuilding process. In 2021-22, the Rangers made a surprise run to the Eastern Conference Final. Though they fell in six games to Tampa, it seemed further playoff success would come in short order. 

Instead, a year later, New York was humiliated in a seven-game first round loss to the upstart New Jersey Devils. Neither Kakko nor Lafreniere has blossomed into a star, Panarin has entered the back nine of his career (and is perhaps more than a few holes through it), and the Rangers face a cap logjam and anxiety-inducing future.

What lessons might all this provide Detroit? First, that the road from loaded prospect pool and inevitable titan to ostensible contender without a clear path to the league’s elite is much shorter than it might seem. The limitless potential that characterized New York when K’Andre Miller, Lafreniere, or Kakko were true prospects has given way to a profound existential unease in a matter of just a few seasons.

Second, faster isn’t (necessarily) better when it comes to rebuilding. Winning the lottery (twice) or attracting an elite free agent doesn’t mean much if your franchise has inadequate developmental infrastructure. The Rangers’ chronic inability to usher a quality forward prospect through their system and toward stardom has prevented them from making good on the potential suggested by their position at or near the top of any “prospect pool” list from the several years preceding.

As a second reference point, let’s consider the patron saints of burn-it-all-down rebuilds: the NBA's Philadelphia 76ers. The Sixers are the archetypal example of the modern rebuild, naked and unabashed in branding its entire franchise around The Process.

Philly won the the lotteries necessary to yield elite players and ended up with twin stars in Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons. When it became clear that Simmons wouldn’t fit next to Embiid, the Sixers flipped him for James Harden—aging and unpopular amongst fans, yes, but a bona fide star nonetheless.

For all that trouble, Philly’s process (i.e. years of losing more than sixty games a year on purpose) has yet to see them past the second round. You could argue that the Rangers were unfortunate to win the number one pick in a season where the draft’s top prize wasn’t a transcendent franchise player, regardless of anybody’s development plan. Embiid, on the other hand, has played at any MVP level for several years and won that award this year. It still hasn’t been enough to pull Philly from its self-imposed doldrums.

What can the Red Wings learn from the Sixers? Just because you tank longer, louder, and harder than anybody else doesn’t mean you are assured of a path forward once the losing’s done.  Even if it yields elite talent, it might be a bit trickier than you imagined to flip the switch from tank to title when your organization has spent season after season losing with a smile. Maybe, just maybe, there is something to the idea that an organizational focus on winning games rather than losing them is more conducive to long-term success.

And that brings us back to Lalonde and the busy summer of 2022. Under Lalonde, Detroit didn’t play the kind of free-flowing, high-event hockey that tends to be favored among the recently rebuilt. Instead, Lalonde wanted his Red Wings to play with the kind of structure that that had just helped Tampa to two Cups and three Eastern Conference crowns.

So, yes, by avoiding an extreme bottoming out, by rebuffing the chance to draft Bedard or Fantilli or Carlsson, Steve Yzerman took a risk, and if Detroit can’t sniff the playoff race in the Eastern Conference in late March and early April, it may be time for an uncomfortable conversation about the state of the Yzerplan.

That's the gamble Yzerman has made: Pushing forward with a core of Larkin, Raymond, Seider, Berggren, Edvinsson, and Kasper, pursuing Cup contention without a homegrown top-three pick on the roster.

However, while the Wings may lack lottery picks, they have serial winners in Yzerman and Lalonde overseeing their process.  Seider's rapid ascent from befuddling draft day overreach to Calder Trophy-winning, aspiring franchise defenseman offers at least one positive data point when it comes to the Yzerman regimes ability to identify and develop talent.

Risky and uncertain?  Sure, but that's what it takes to break through the glass ceiling that separates contenders from rebuilders.