GRAND RAPIDS, Mich — The news of legendary Detroit Red Wings Captain, Steve Yzerman's unexpected departure from his Executive Vice President and General Manager position is still surrounded by questions.
Happening deep into the offseason, Yzerman had already handled the draft and free agency. Leading to more questions about why the move happened now, according to beat writer for The Athletic, Max Bultman.
"It's very unusual timing," Bultman told me. "Usually, when you see a move like this made, it would happen in April or May, early in a hiring cycle. I mean, basically the, the other teams that have made changes this offseason have already gone through this process that the Red Wings are now going to begin going through."
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If you have been following the Red Wings' offseason drama this summer, you know the current Captain[for now], Dylan Larkin, publicly requested a trade from the Red Wings back in June following the Wings' 10th consecutive season missing the playoffs. With a change in the front office, Max said he's not sure if that changes Larkin's decision, or how the fans see the Michigan-born player's request to leave town.
"There's the question of could Dylan Larkin change his mind, and there's the question of would fans and would the organization be willing to kind of forget this whole saga too, because you can tell that it, it obviously stung a lot of people, uh, how this has all played out," Bultman told me. "So, I think that's kind of the second-level question that sometimes gets forgotten."
As for who gets the job next? Max thinks the list is long and believes the Wings should be making as many calls as humanly possible to get the right person behind the winged wheel.
"They said they're going to do a search that they're gonna consider both internal candidates and external candidates. You know, they're two assistant general managers. One of them is Sean Horcoff, the General Manager of the Grand Rapids Griffins, and the Griffins had an outstanding season this year. I think that does make Horcoff kind of an obvious candidate," Max said. "Chris Draper is another Assistant General Manager, the Director of Amateur Scouting. I do wonder if that's really, you know, can you go from Steve Yzerman to Chris Draper, knowing that they were teammates, knowing how closely they kind of worked and similar, would you be able to kind of sell that to fans? I think that's my main question about Draper. But you go outside the organization?"
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