Stockton: Lalonde Ouster Shifts Focus to Yzerman as McLellan Era Dawns

Outgoing Detroit Red Wings coach Derek Lalonde had a habit of describing his team's struggles in forensic terms: A player might have his fingerprints on a goal against, leaning toward offense was in the DNA of his top six forwards.  In the end, regardless of the extent to which he was responsible, Lalonde was caught holding the bag at the crime scene that was a 13–17–4 start to the season, and for that offense, he was fired early Thursday afternoon, the NHL's holiday roster freeze holding no protection for its head coaches.

At his introductory press conference Friday morning, Lalonde's replacement—Todd McLellan—described his arrival in Detroit as "hectic."  He'd intended to enjoy a few days of relaxation around the holidays at his family home in Kelowna, British Columbia.  Instead, he had to fly back to Los Angeles (the site of his last coaching gig) to retrieve the suits he'd need behind the Red Wings bench—different garb from the loungewear he'd brought to Kelowna.

The responsibility of explaining the coaching change fell to the man who decided to make it: general manager Steve Yzerman.  30 minutes before McLellan ran his first morning skate as Detroit coach, Yzerman sat before the media with a professorial air—tortoiseshell glasses, a grey suit, a grey sweater and grey tie with red stripes beneath it, not quite funereal but somber to be sure.

The Red Wings had failed to meet his expectations through 34 games, Yzerman said.  The whole was less than the sum of its constituent parts.  Change was necessary.  According to Yzerman, the scope of the team's shortcomings was total: "We need to score more, we need to be better defensively."  "The spirit was zapped out," he added.

From that framework, the question begs: What exactly were those expectations Lalonde's team failed to reach?  Per Yzerman, for this year, the objective had been competing for a wild card spot.  He said you need good players to win, and when asked whether his team had those good players on the roster, he replied "to win a Cup?  No."

That assessment is less a revelation than a concession of the obvious.  Not even the most optimistic (read: naïve) of Red Wing partisans could have perceived this roster as belonging to the NHL's elite.  Not entering the season, and certainly not now.  But the zapped spirit Yzerman described is bigger than 34 games of underperformance.  It concerns trajectory, direction of travel, and the distance between the team that will host the Toronto Maple Leafs Friday night and not even winning a championship but seriously competing for one.

"Hockeytown, I know what that means," McLellan said after morning skate.  "I saw it in some really good times, and the goal is to get back there."  Among those meanings is an understanding of success measured in championships.  That is the success Yzerman enjoyed before his number 19 went up to the rafters.  That is the success McLellan enjoyed when he served as an assistant on the bench at Joe Louis Arena, the same success that catapulted him into his first NHL head coaching opportunity in San Jose.  It is also increasingly distant history in the face of mounting organizational malaise and the threat of a ninth consecutive spring without postseason hockey.

In all his explanations, there were two timelines Yzerman declined to provide, despite repeated opportunities to offer them.  The first was the specific chronology of gauging McLellan's interest, assessing his candidacy, and securing his services.  The explanation for Yzerman's reluctance on that front seemed to be discretion, an unwillingness to publicize the obvious and unfortunate reality of having to begin vetting candidates before the vacancy officially existed.  The second schedule Yzerman declined to offer was the one toward championship contention.  "I can't give you an exact timeline," he said.  That may have been an honest appraisal, but it is nonetheless a concerning one.

On their face, Yzerman's stated reasons for letting go of Lalonde stand up to scrutiny.  The goal entering the season was defensive improvement, not necessarily tied to end-of-season outcome.  In the season's early going, attempts at defensive tightening manifested as little more than passivity, and the Red Wings spent far too much time in their own zone.  As the season progressed, Detroit took strides in becoming a stingier outfit, but it was perilous progress—jailbreaks in the D zone or at the blue line and giveaways never too far away.  What progress the Red Wings made in defending at five-on-five was undone by their offensive paucity and a disastrously poor penalty kill.

Further still, in listening to captain Dylan Larkin debrief Monday's 4–0 loss to the St. Louis Blues, a loss that proved the last game of Lalonde's tenure, there could be no denying Yzerman's assertion that the team wanted for spirit.  And yet, whatever spark McLellan's arrival might provide, it's difficult to see what he can do to bridge the gap between the team he inherits and the NHL's ruling class.

Yzerman's most zealous supporters (by this point, they are perhaps better described as defenders) will point to the roster he inherited when he took over in the spring of 2019 and say that it is too early to expect an increased sense of competitiveness.  That optimism is not devoid of truth, but the runway for the eventual takeoff it presumes is not limitless.

The simplest way to measure the Red Wings' window—as Yzerman himself pointed out, it can't yet be described as a championship window—is Larkin's prime.  At 28, it is reasonable to expect Larkin to remain at the top of his game for more than a few seasons to come, but midway through his 10th season, it is more than fair to wonder just how much longer he can serve as Detroit's talisman.

Meanwhile, 2019 is not so long ago, but on the timescale of the modern NHL, it's long enough for nearly every roster in the league to turn over every player but its foremost stars.  Larkin is the lone holdover from the NHL roster Yzerman assumed that spring.  As McLellan pointed out this morning, "he shoulders a lot of responsibility here, and there's a lot of weight put on his shoulders...I'd like to see that spread out a little bit."

Five years on from his arrival, Yzerman's added quality complements to his captain: Moritz Seider and Lucas Raymond foremost among them, Marco Kasper and Simon Edvinsson promising to serve that responsibility with similar aplomb.  There is also help on the way that hasn't yet arrived on the NHL stage.  Just yesterday, 2023 first round pick Axel Sandin-Pellikka scored a hat trick as Sweden opened its World Junior campaign.

But increasingly, to imagine a Red Wing team contending for a championship is to depend upon not just one or two but rather numerous prospects hitting the absolute utmost of their potential.  That's a lofty aspiration for even the deepest of prospect pools.

In the end, Lalonde's firing formalizes what has been increasingly obvious to any neutral observer for some time: The "Yzer-plan" is off track.  That doesn't mean it is irrecoverable, but the road to success, which again in Hockeytown can only be measured in Stanley Cup rings (there are no divisional championship banners hanging in the rafters at Little Caesars Arena, much less wild card ones), has never looked more difficult.

Yzerman himself admitted that elite players don't come available often in free agency or through trade, so the solutions will have to emerge from within.  McLellan spoke of the perils of "over-coach[ing]" and trying to change too much too soon upon taking the reins.  McLellan said that entering tonight's game, he wouldn't have time to make systemic or structural changes.  Instead, his imperative is for his team to play "harder, faster, and a little bit smarter."

The Red Wings did not open the locker room after this morning's skate.  Instead, Larkin, Seider, and Patrick Kane assumed the media room podium to address their team's holiday turmoil.   "It felt like something needed to happen, and now we move forward," said Larkin, the same thousand yard stare across his face as when he'd named the fact that the Red Wings hadn't given their fans any reason to cheer when asked about the boos that sent them to the locker room after the loss to the Blues.

It was Seider who, by a great distance, sounded most bullish about the future.  Of McLellan's three mandates—"harder, faster, and a little bit smarter"—Seider said, "maybe he hit the right triggers already," before adding, "I think we're going to be a team that's playing with a lot of hearty, a lot of character, and a lot of spirit tonight."

So, at least for now, McLellan's objective—one he, his new boss, and his new charges all addressed—is to initiate a spiritual revival.  The end goal of that revival doesn't wait at the conclusion of this season, whether or not McLellan's arrival is enough to renew this year's playoff aspiration.  Instead, the awakening Yzerman and Detroit need from their new coach must be powerful enough to finally move on from the good times gone by in Hockeytown and hang a new banner in LCA's rafters.

In his comments Friday morning, Yzerman rejected the notion that a coach has a shelf life, but in a league where the fifth longest tenured head coach (Utah's André Tourigny) was hired on July 1st, 2021, there is far better chance than not that McLellan's tenure will be over by the time the calendar turns to 2030.  And when McLellan's tenure ends, if that banner hasn't risen, there will be no more denying that the beautiful dream of Yzerman's return to revitalize the Red Wings has crumbled.

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