Red Wings finally make a hiring, but it's not who you think

It's been three weeks since the hockey world was rocked by the news that Steve Yzerman would be stepping aside as general manager of the Detroit Red Wings, and the franchise still doesn't have a clear successor in place. With training camp set to begin on September 17 and the regular season opener looming on October 2, you'd think there would be some urgency in Motown. Well, there is, sort of. The Red Wings have finally made a hire. But it's not the one fans have been waiting for.

According to a report from Helene St. James of the Detroit Free Press, owner Christopher Ilitch has brought in a search firm to assist with finding Yzerman's replacement. A source within the NHL with knowledge of the situation confirmed the move, which signals that this process is going to take a while longer. Given that the team is now routing its search through a third party, it could be several more weeks before a new GM is officially named.

A Franchise in Limbo

In the meantime, assistant GM Shawn Horcoff is handling the day-to-day operations of the hockey department, though his authority reportedly does not extend to making trades. That's a significant limitation for a team that has some major roster decisions ahead of it, including finalizing a new deal for defenseman Simon Edvinsson, negotiating an extension with Alex DeBrincat, and addressing the elephant in the room: captain Dylan Larkin's trade request, which he made shortly after the season ended in April and has not wavered on since.

The Red Wings are the only NHL team currently searching for a general manager, which gives them the luxury of not having to rush. Reports suggest that the organization is still in the very early stages of its process and is willing to take its time to get this right. And frankly, they need to. This is the most consequential front office hire the Ilitch family has made since Christopher's father, Mike Ilitch, passed away in February 2017.

When Yzerman came aboard in April 2019, he inherited a roster that was in rough shape, and the fanbase extended him a long grace period. But what was supposed to be a storybook homecoming gradually lost its shine as the playoff drought stretched on. Now, a decade removed from their last postseason appearance, the Wings are looking for someone who can finally turn the tide.

The Analytics Push

Perhaps the most interesting wrinkle in all of this is the direction Ilitch appears to be leaning. The search is reportedly focused on finding an analytics-driven candidate, similar to the approach the Ilitch family took when they hired Scott Harris from the San Francisco Giants to lead the Detroit Tigers' baseball operations back in 2022. The Red Wings have utilized analytics within their hockey operations department in the past, but only in an advisory capacity rather than as a core part of the decision-making process.

That said, other reports have indicated that the Wings aren't necessarily locked into one specific archetype. The organization is reportedly open to modernizing its front office in various ways, including potentially installing a President of Hockey Operations above the GM. Names that have been floated as speculative fits include Sam Ventura, the Vice President of Hockey Strategy for the Buffalo Sabres, and Tyler Dellow, an assistant GM with the recently crowned Stanley Cup champion Carolina Hurricanes. The Hurricanes, Panthers, Avalanche, and Sabres have all been cited as examples of organizations that have leaned heavily into analytics with tangible results.

The hiring committee itself is expected to be a large one. Yzerman will reportedly have input on his successor, and Ilitch may also seek guidance from Jeff Greenberg, the Tigers' current GM who previously served as Associate GM of the Chicago Blackhawks. It's a cross-sport collaborative approach that the Ilitch ownership group has used before, as Yzerman himself helped in the process of hiring Harris for the Tigers.

With the season fast approaching and the Larkin situation still unresolved, the clock is ticking. Whoever eventually gets the job will walk into one of the most pressure-packed situations in the NHL, tasked with ending a decade-long playoff drought and potentially reshaping the roster from the ground up. For now, though, Red Wings fans will have to settle for the fact that at least something got hired, even if it's just a consulting firm.