Rick Osentoski-USA TODAY Sports
Three Items The Next Detroit Red Wings GM Must Address
Ryan Lambertfeatured
23hUpdated Jul 18, 2026, 13:47
Steve Yzerman’s tenure as the Detroit Red Wings’ GM is over, and with that, a new figure will run the Original Six franchise. While the Red Wings conduct a full search, the next GM will have three items they must address immediately
For the first time in several years, the Detroit Red Wings are on the hunt for a new GM
And really, this is the first real search they’ll have to conduct in more than a generation, because when Steve Yzerman got hired a little more than seven years ago, it was such a no-brainer that there was barely a search at all. He was the obvious heir to Ken Holland, but there’s now nothing even close to a guarantee
With that in mind, here are the three most pressing issues facing any hire they make, whether it’s in a week, a month, or longer:
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Clearly, what Yzerman was building was not working
Holland didn’t exactly set the best table for Yzerman, but the team seems to have made little progress over nearly a decade of being run by the former captain. The 92 points they posted in the 2025-26 season were their best total in nearly a decade, but it still wasn’t enough to earn a playoff berth, and it was clear that at least some of the players didn’t really see the vision
There’s a difference between being competitive for a playoff spot (the Wings missed by seven points, which is a wider margin than it sounds like) and being competitive enough to threaten to make a deep post-season run
Yzerman clearly favored the longtime Detroit approach: Load up on veteransen you’re absolutely sure they’re ready. It didn’t work, and arguably hasn’t worked for much longer than a decade-long playoff drought
So the question is whether that’s the approach favored by the Red Wings front office, made up of guys who had a lot of success in the 1990s and into the mid-2000s, or whether it’s an edict from ownership
If it’s the former, do they pivot with their new hire and take a more direct approach to getting young guys into the lineup? If it’s the latter, should we just be expecting them to hire another ex-Red Wing from the glory days?
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Clearly, one of the biggest issues that led to the end of the Yzerman era is the disquiet around Larkin, their current captain. He wants out. Is that because Larkin is frustrated with Yzerman personally — there were some rather infamous comments last summer about the GM not providing help, or the players not earning it — or is he frustrated about the direction of the team in general?
This ties back to what Red Wings leadership is looking for in the new GM, and, interestingly, Yzerman will seemingly still have some sway over that hiring process
If it’s a personal issue, maybe a new hire ends the trade demand, full stop. If it’s an organizational issue, can the new hire convince Larkin that things will change as soon as possible, and there’s no need for a change of scenery?
Also part of this discussion: whether the Red Wings are better off moving on from Larkin, regardless of the next GM’s preferred direction. If, for instance, there’s an understanding from the top down that another crack at a years-long rebuild might be in the cards, they should probably trade him for futures anyway
That’s certainly not what Yzerman wanted (the stated goal was to trade Larkin for current roster players), but he’s not the GM anymore. If the next hire has a different vision, does Larkin even fit into it?
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This is a question lots of NHL teams have to ask themselves. While everyone would like to win the Stanley Cup, the vast majority of teams in the league aren’t especially likely to truly compete for it consistently. Some teams can make a conference final almost out of nowhere, but for most, their big prize at the end of the season is maybe getting into the second round
The Red Wings are a team that should have higher aspirations than that, given their overall financial health (they don’t need to rely on revenue sharing to make ends meet) and their status as one of the league’s most important franchises
But when you miss the playoffs for 10 years straight with no obvious end in sight, barring the kind of out-of-nowhere success teams like the Pittsburgh Penguins or Buffalo Sabres just had this past season, maybe the math is a little different. Will they be content building a team that reaches 96 or 98 points just to end the playoff drought, or will they take the longer view and try to build a team that can be Cup-competitive again further down the line?
Those goals aren’t mutually exclusive, of course. Still, there are a lot of teams around the league that have shown the former kind of more modest aspirations, and you don’t want to end up like the Columbus Blue Jackets, Vancouver Canucks, or Calgary Flames
So it’s as simple as whether they want to take shortcuts for short-term gains, even if that means building a more robust prospect base for the future, or they’re taking the longer view
That, too, feels like a decision that will ultimately be dictated by ownership
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