You may laugh at the source, and will get angry at the thoughts of the Calgary writer. Yet this is how some around the league see our rebuild. An unbiased look at it from the outside world. Yeah, it hurts to read what other cities around the world think about what’s going on with the Yzerplan. Taking off my homer blinders I have to say he sums it up pretty well. I admit that it hurts to read this unvarnished story about Red Wing hockey from an outsider. At first I got angry but then again what he says are things that have been said in here in the past.
In one word this Calgary writers assessment:
Brutal
jfstompers
We don’t need any help with the disappointment,
PineapplePhil
Who is this guy and why do we care about what he thinks?
Redwingedblackbird81
His argument is logical and supported by evidence. It’s what more and more Wings fans have been saying for a while.
If some of your fanbase and fans of other teams (without the emotional attachment to Yzerman) are saying the rebuild has failed, maybe just maybe there’s something to that?
Coverage from Detroit Hockey Now of a Calgary Herald column. Really scraping the bottom of the barrel here aren’t we?
csoules1998
Seider is a talent that takes over games and AlJo is not the only regular outside the first round (Finnie…)
This writer is thorough 😂
BuffaloSoldier11
Duff used to have a crazy twitter likes history
big_phat_gator
mcgrupp44
greythedork12
Almost all arguments made are woefully lacking in critical thinking.
Firstly, taking our winning percentage over Yzerman’s tenure is basically meaningless. We were intentionally awful for like half of it.
Secondly, “of our last 7 top-10 picks, only 2 two are stars and zero are transformational talents”. Yzerman has only picked 5 players in the top 10 and Kasper and Danielson are *barely* top 10: Seider (6th), Raymond (4th), Edvinsson (6th), Kasper (8th), and Danielson (9th). Seider is absolutely a transformational talent. Edvinsson isn’t a star, but he sure could be one and glossing over his existence is dumb. He’s, at the very least, already a top 4 LHD (and he was 22 for most of the season) and a great partner for Seider. Kasper and Danielson aren’t stars, but nobody picked behind either of them meaningfully alters the state of the franchise. You can argue there were better picks, but none that really change much. *Maybe* Zach Benson over Danielson, but we needed a center.
“Albert Johansson is the only homegrown regular drafted outside of the first round”. For one: Emmitt Finnie. Also, all this really means is “we only had 1 hit past the first in 2019 and 2020”. There are less than 10 NHL regulars drafted after Shai Buium in 2021. Less than that after James in 2022. Two players drafted after Augustine have played more than half a season and one of them is Finnie (Denver Barkey has 43 games). 2024 and 2025 barely have guys in the NHL yet. We have guys outside the first who look incredibly promising. Mazur would be a regular if he stayed healthy. Soderblom wasn’t quite a regular, but he was an NHLer before we traded him. Anton Johansson looks excellent. Augustine and Plante just won the Richter and the Hobey Baker. Geborg was one of the best u21 players in Sweden. None are NHL contributors yet, but basically nobody that wasn’t a top pick from their classes is.
The only semi-legitimate criticism is that our FA acquisitions have been mediocre and that we got good “too soon” by adding in 2023. We were never going to be as bad as those bottom teams in the Bedard draft though: just DeBrincat, Larkin, Raymond, and Seider alone are too good for that. The FAs has admittedly been a weakness, but even that has cleaned up a bit as we’ve headed towards relevancy. Hamonic was depth insurance, Gibson was great, JvR played his role, JBD was what we signed him to be, Appleton was meh, but he wasn’t signed to be a game-breaker, etc. The days of the Petry, Holl, etc stopgaps are mostly in the past and (shockingly) when you’re a bad team climbing out from maybe the deepest hole in NHL history (the 2019-20 wings were truly abysmal) you don’t exactly attract the top FAs.
Shotokanguy
There’s no such thing as the « Yzerplan »
GMs all have the same plan. Make the team better. He’s not doing some secret GM-jitsu that warrants a special name. He’s made good moves and questionable moves. Like every GM.
ChaldenesTitan
I was born in Calgary. Their blueprint for the last 20 years has been one of the worst in the league. They don’t even have a history in the modern era of showing the league how to build a team. Their best core was a bunch of americans who didn’t even want to be there and it turned into some of the worst asset management the leagues ever seen. Tkachuk for Huberdeau and Weegar and letting Gaudreau walk has set them into the dark ages with no clear plan.
There best prospect Parekh was on pace for 20 points last season and they should put him at forward because he has no clue how to play defense. There best forward is Morgan Frost who is a 3C on a cup contending team.
Good luck resolving that in less than a decade flames. But knowing them they will go all in on their core and make playoffs and call it a success despite losing.
12 Comments
You may laugh at the source, and will get angry at the thoughts of the Calgary writer. Yet this is how some around the league see our rebuild. An unbiased look at it from the outside world. Yeah, it hurts to read what other cities around the world think about what’s going on with the Yzerplan. Taking off my homer blinders I have to say he sums it up pretty well. I admit that it hurts to read this unvarnished story about Red Wing hockey from an outsider. At first I got angry but then again what he says are things that have been said in here in the past.
In one word this Calgary writers assessment:
Brutal
We don’t need any help with the disappointment,
Who is this guy and why do we care about what he thinks?
His argument is logical and supported by evidence. It’s what more and more Wings fans have been saying for a while.
If some of your fanbase and fans of other teams (without the emotional attachment to Yzerman) are saying the rebuild has failed, maybe just maybe there’s something to that?
https://i.redd.it/s288mwpnp4zg1.gif
Coverage from Detroit Hockey Now of a Calgary Herald column. Really scraping the bottom of the barrel here aren’t we?
Seider is a talent that takes over games and AlJo is not the only regular outside the first round (Finnie…)
This writer is thorough 😂
Duff used to have a crazy twitter likes history
Almost all arguments made are woefully lacking in critical thinking.
Firstly, taking our winning percentage over Yzerman’s tenure is basically meaningless. We were intentionally awful for like half of it.
Secondly, “of our last 7 top-10 picks, only 2 two are stars and zero are transformational talents”. Yzerman has only picked 5 players in the top 10 and Kasper and Danielson are *barely* top 10: Seider (6th), Raymond (4th), Edvinsson (6th), Kasper (8th), and Danielson (9th). Seider is absolutely a transformational talent. Edvinsson isn’t a star, but he sure could be one and glossing over his existence is dumb. He’s, at the very least, already a top 4 LHD (and he was 22 for most of the season) and a great partner for Seider. Kasper and Danielson aren’t stars, but nobody picked behind either of them meaningfully alters the state of the franchise. You can argue there were better picks, but none that really change much. *Maybe* Zach Benson over Danielson, but we needed a center.
“Albert Johansson is the only homegrown regular drafted outside of the first round”. For one: Emmitt Finnie. Also, all this really means is “we only had 1 hit past the first in 2019 and 2020”. There are less than 10 NHL regulars drafted after Shai Buium in 2021. Less than that after James in 2022. Two players drafted after Augustine have played more than half a season and one of them is Finnie (Denver Barkey has 43 games). 2024 and 2025 barely have guys in the NHL yet. We have guys outside the first who look incredibly promising. Mazur would be a regular if he stayed healthy. Soderblom wasn’t quite a regular, but he was an NHLer before we traded him. Anton Johansson looks excellent. Augustine and Plante just won the Richter and the Hobey Baker. Geborg was one of the best u21 players in Sweden. None are NHL contributors yet, but basically nobody that wasn’t a top pick from their classes is.
The only semi-legitimate criticism is that our FA acquisitions have been mediocre and that we got good “too soon” by adding in 2023. We were never going to be as bad as those bottom teams in the Bedard draft though: just DeBrincat, Larkin, Raymond, and Seider alone are too good for that. The FAs has admittedly been a weakness, but even that has cleaned up a bit as we’ve headed towards relevancy. Hamonic was depth insurance, Gibson was great, JvR played his role, JBD was what we signed him to be, Appleton was meh, but he wasn’t signed to be a game-breaker, etc. The days of the Petry, Holl, etc stopgaps are mostly in the past and (shockingly) when you’re a bad team climbing out from maybe the deepest hole in NHL history (the 2019-20 wings were truly abysmal) you don’t exactly attract the top FAs.
There’s no such thing as the « Yzerplan »
GMs all have the same plan. Make the team better. He’s not doing some secret GM-jitsu that warrants a special name. He’s made good moves and questionable moves. Like every GM.
I was born in Calgary. Their blueprint for the last 20 years has been one of the worst in the league. They don’t even have a history in the modern era of showing the league how to build a team. Their best core was a bunch of americans who didn’t even want to be there and it turned into some of the worst asset management the leagues ever seen. Tkachuk for Huberdeau and Weegar and letting Gaudreau walk has set them into the dark ages with no clear plan.
There best prospect Parekh was on pace for 20 points last season and they should put him at forward because he has no clue how to play defense. There best forward is Morgan Frost who is a 3C on a cup contending team.
Good luck resolving that in less than a decade flames. But knowing them they will go all in on their core and make playoffs and call it a success despite losing.