3 concerning signs for Steve Yzerman and the Red Wings.

If you were a fan of the Detroit Red Wings in the late 90s and early 2000s you were living the good life. The Red Wings captured 4 Stanley Cup championships over that span winning the National Hockey League's most prestigious trophy in 1997, 1998, 2002 and in 2008, but since that time the Red Wings have been unable to replicate their past success.

The way in which this has become most obvious as of late has been the team's inability to so much as even qualify for the Stanley Cup playoffs, this in spite of the fact that half the league makes it in each and every year.

The Red Wings' lack of success on the ice has been a source of great frustration for fans, especially long time fans of the franchise, but it now appears clear that the years of futility on the ice have had a very profound impact on the team itself.

Recently NHL insider Elliotte Friedman revealed that, in spite of the fact that the Red Wings aggressively pursued a number of free agents this summer, none of them really seemed to consider the Red Wings as a genuine option.

Friedman began by pointing to the fact that Red Wings general manager Steve Yzerman would have liked to bring in one of the bigger ticket free agents on the market this summer, a want that Friedman believes was never going to become a reality.

"As Yzerman said I don't think Ehlers was a realistic option," admitted Friedman on the 32 Thoughts podcast. "I don't think that was ever going to happen."

Friedman also pointed to a pair of other names that Yzerman had interest in, with neither of those names ending up in Detroit despite being moved to other teams this summer.

"I think he had some interest in [Victor] Arvidsson... he ended up in Boston, I heard the Red Wings like Mason Marchment, he ended up in Seattle," said Friedman. "So there were some things that [Yzerman] wanted to do that he wasn't able to do."

Friedman believes that the current direction of the Red Wings will be hard to sell to the diehard fans of the Red Wings.

"It's a hard sell in Detroit, it really is, it's been too long without the playoffs." said Friedman.

Despite this he doesn't see general manager Steve Yzerman deviating from his plan of action.

"The thing about Yzerman is, he believes in himself," said Friedman. "Even if nobody else believes in what he is doing, he thinks he is doing the right thing and that is drafting and developing their guys."

Whether or not the fans in Detroit will show the same level of patience that Yzerman appears to be showing is another matter entirely.