The Detroit Red Wings celebrated the return of Steve Yzerman three years ago, expecting one of their all-time greats to turn around the franchise as general manager.
It hasn’t happened yet.
Looking to shake up the rebuild, Yzerman fired coach Jeff Blashill after on Saturday. Blashill had a .447 winning percentage, second-worst in the league over his seven seasons, not counting the debut season of the expansion Seattle Kraken.
The Red Wings closed their third season under Yzerman on Friday night with a 5-3 win at New Jersey, failing to show much progress in the standings with the Hall of Fame player in charge.
Detroit was 32-40-10 and won 39 per cent of its games, barely faring better than last year’s rate after bottoming out in Yzerman’s first season by winning fewer than one-fourth of its games.
The Red Wings weren’t the worst team in the league this season, finishing about 20 points ahead of the NHL’s worst teams. However, they were nearly 30 points away from earning a wild-card berth in the playoffs.
Detroit’s string of seasons without appearing in the playoffs stretched to six years after being in 25 straight post-seasons and winning four Stanley Cups.
“We’ve stayed in the playoff race longer than we have the last couple of years” Blashill said before he was fired. “Since we started the rebuild, we had as much hope as we’ve had.”
Yzerman’s first major move of the off-season was to decide what to do with Blashill, whose tenure coincided with a rebuilding project that would’ve likely doomed anyone behind the bench.
Blashill, who was 204-261-72, has said in recent days that he’s not worried about his future with the franchise and is proud of the improvements made this season.
