The captain is Dylan Larkin, but The Captain remains Steve Yzerman. The man who ended one playoff drought for the Red Wings as an 18-year-old rookie is hellbent on ending another as their 57-year-old GM.
"Steve Yzerman builds good teams," new Red Wings defenseman Ben Chiarot said Wednesday. "I think everyone know that."
If they don't, they haven't been paying attention. The team Yzerman built in Tampa Bay just went to the Cup finals for the third straight season. The team he's building in Detroit raised eyebrows around the NHL last season and just turned heads on the first day of free agency.
Yzerman and the Red Wings got the true No. 2 center they needed in Andrew Copp. They got the sturdy left-shot defensemen they needed in Chiarot and Olli Maatta. And then, because they were feeling it, because Yzerman intends to purge the stench of losing from the Red Wings locker room once and for all, they got the goal-scoring wingers they wanted in David Perron and Dominik Kubalik, for a total tab of about $63 million. (All after trading for the second goalie they needed in Ville Husso at the draft.)
Yzerman had tolerated Detroit's struggles in this rebuild he inherited from Ken Holland. He had clenched his jaw in the face of embarrassing defeats, knowing there was no other way. He had dulled the pain, if only just a little, by nailing one high draft pick after another: Moritz Seider, Lucas Raymond, Simon Edvinsson.
After Wednesday's spending spree brought Detroit's bill to about $77 million this summer, well more than Yzerman had spent in his first three offseasons combined, the message is rather clear from a three-time Stanley Cup winner: the losing stops now.
"This team," said Perron, 34, "is definitely ready to start competing on a regular basis for the playoffs -- and who knows what can happen from there."
Any GM can make noise in free agency. Money talks. But no one talks like Yzerman, who is making Hockeytown a destination again. He is reviving the aura Detroit lost toward the end of its epic playoff run, never clearer than when Steven Stamkos dismissed the Wings as a free agent in the summer of 2016, declined to even meet with them, and stayed with Yzerman and the Lightning in Tampa. At the time, the allure of the winged wheel was dead.
The allure was always tied to winning, to the promise of success. It was tied to figures like Yzerman. It is tied more tightly to him now than ever. In his three years running the Red Wings, Yzerman has plotted a path forward for a team that was going nowhere. He has strengthened their roster and restocked their farm system, and players around the league are taking notice. Yzerman is the reason free agents will consider the Wings. The future he's built is why they're once again choosing the Wings.
"Obviously Steve did a great job building the team in Tampa. He drafted a bunch of those guys and turned that into a big part of where they’re at today, so the trust stems from there," said Copp. "And then just seeing (the Red Wings') product on the ice the last couple years, with Raymond and Seider, it was really an influx of talent. I think everyone across the league saw it as an opportunity where, 'Detroit’s going to be good in a couple years, just wait.' And I’d like to be a part of that."
Copp, Chiarot and Perron all had different offers on the table Wednesday. They were three of the more coveted free agents on the market, Copp in particular. Mattaa, a two-time Cup winner, and Kubalik, a former Rookie of the Year candidate, surely had other suitors, too. They all picked the Red Wings.
More precisely, they all picked Yzerman. They all picked his reputation as a winner. As a player and an executive, there is not a more distinguished figure in the game. Free agents used to come to Detroit to win with Yzerman. Now they're coming back.
"The moment you get a call from Steve Yzerman, it catches your attention right away," said Perron.
"For a kid who grew up in the '90s," said Chiarot, a native of Hamilton, Ontario who still has lots of family in Windsor, "Steve Yzerman was an icon in the game. So just getting to speak with him, it’s flattering to hear that he wants you on his team."
And then there's Copp, who was raised on the Red Wings in Ann Arbor. He was born into what he called the "Yzerman, Shanahan, Lidstrom era" and came of age in the "Datsyuk, Zetterberg era." He said the Stanley Cups in 2002 and 2008 "were big parts of my childhood."
"So it’s cool," he said, "to be coming home and trying to recreate the magic."
The Red Wings bottled their magic for a long time, but the lid was lifted when Yzerman left to take over the Lightning in 2010. He came home in 2019. This is what he's been working on since, and sparks started flying for the first time Wednesday. The job is far from over. It's still a long way home to Hockeytown. But the Red Wings are on their way, led as always by The Captain.
"It was a pretty easy choice for me," said Chiarot. "A team that’s on the rise, built by Steve Yzerman."