In selecting new leadership for the Detroit Red Wings, owner Christopher Ilitch is seeking outside assistance.
A person within the NHL with knowledge of the process told the Free Press that Ilitch hired a search firm to help determine who should replace Steve Yzerman. Yzerman served as Wings general manager from April 19, 2019-July 15, 2026, when it was announced he would transition to a role as a senior advisor.
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In the meantime, assistant GM Shawn Horcoff is handling day-to-day responsibilities, though that does not extend to making trades.
Three weeks have passed since the Yzerman announcement that stunned the hockey world. While the Wings have missed the playoffs every spring during his time in the front office, the timing was odd: Yzerman had just gone through being in charge of the draft and free agency.
But this is where the Wings find themselves as August ages: Without leadership and possibly without a captain, as Dylan Larkin has not budged on the request to be traded that he made shortly after the season ended April 15.
Ilitch, and by extension the search firm, is believed to be looking for an analytics-driven person to take charge of the Wings, similar to how his Detroit Tigers plucked Scott Harris from the San Francisco Giants to guide the Tigers as president of baseball operations in September 2022.
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This is the biggest hire Ilitch will make since his father, Mike Ilitch, died on Feb. 10, 2017. At that time, Ken Holland was GM. When Yzerman announced in fall of 2018 that he was stepping back in his role as general manager of the Tampa Bay Lightning in what was the last year of his contract, it immediately became clear there was a path for Yzerman to return to manage the team he captained to three Stanley Cups. That happened the following April.
Yzerman inherited a team that was in shambles, and with that came a long grace period. But what appeared to be a storybook return soured as the years piled up and the playoff drought dragged on. Now it’s seven years later, and Ilitch is poised to bring in a fresh hire whose immediate tasks will be to deal with the Larkin situation, and how to shape the team into a product that will end what has grown to a 10-year playoff drought.
Ilitch and the search firm may well look to teams like the analytics-driven Carolina Hurricanes, who just won the Stanley Cup, following a two-season Cup run by the Florida Panthers fueled by the analytics department. That run was championed by then-assistant GM Sunny Mehta, who is now GM of the New Jersey Devils; he spearheaded their analytics department in 2014. The Colorado Avalanche and Buffalo Sabres are likewise deeply embedded in analytics.
The Wings have employed analytics within their hockey operations department, but it has been in an advisory capacity, not a decision-making one. But after 10 years of missing the playoffs and seven disappointing years under Yzerman, it appears the Wings are in for a significant change in management style as the 2026-27 season draws closer.
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Training camp begins Sept. 17, and the Red Wings open the season Oct. 2.
Contact Helene St. James at Hstjames@freepress.com. Read more on the Detroit Red Wings and sign up for our Red Wings newsletter.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Detroit Red Wings general manager search going through search firm
