I made a table and chart in Google Drive to track win/loss records and team points per game. Couldn't add the GM/Coach to the chart itself so I doctored an image to show these. It begins with the 2015/2016 season because that's both when Blashill started coaching and when the Wings played their last playoff game. You can also find the Sheets doc here.
The 2025 season isn't over, so the chart line will change. The other two stats will move but can be used to gauge the current state of the season. This is just a snapshot of where the Wings are with 21% season completion.
When we talk about the Yzerplan, the best we have is the results; everything else is conjecture. Team points get them into the playoffs, and there's a correlation with the win/loss percentage and team points per game. I was a little surprised how consistent the OTLs have been, strengthening the relationship between W/L% and PPG. Obviously I couldn't use raw points because of the two seasons shortened by covid.
Compared to the 5 years before Yzerman was GM, these 4.25 years are looking good. Sure, the team was in the playoffs at the beginning, but the downward trend had already begun.
14 comments
Why would you include 2024-2025? Just leave it off, at a glance this looks like wings are plummeting, not everyone is gonna stop and consider that the season has barely started
The issue here is they’re on pace to finish within sniffing distance of dead last, which a year after narrowly missing the playoffs, isn’t an aberration. It’s a loss of talent. And probably, some of it on the coach, and I’m good with letting him go.
I am not advocating to fire Yzerman. Read this twice. But don’t piss on me and tell me it’s raining. 6th oldest team in the league, against the cap, and inching up to last place?
So an improvement every year since 2020? Guess regression is to be expected. I’ll be curious to see this at the end of the year.
That last column deserves a comment from a famous person. I’ll pick “I only trust statistics that I doctored myself” from good’ol Churchill.
I can’t believe people are actually talking about even thinking about firing Yzerman. Since he’s been here, he’s built up the best young pipeline in the NHL. From zero, repeat zero, inventory. We had nothing but Larkin. The timeline is the timeline. All our prospects are 19 and 20 years old besides the ones that are in the NHL.
All these mediocre free agent signings everybody’s complaining, they’re just placeholders to kick the can down the road until our draft picks are actually ready to play in the NHL. The next batch of free agent signings will be important.
It doesn’t make any sense at all to use point totals when you have win % right there. Just use win %.
This is misleading af. Why would you include this season if it’s not even close to being done yet? Comparing the results through the first 20 games of each season would be a far more useful comparison instead of comparing completed seasons to one that’s not even done yet
You including the points graph is so laughable. What are you doing lol
It’s hard to try to make any objective comparisons at all. Circumstances are very different across years, and lots of luck is involved. It really just comes down to how much faith people personally have in Yzerman. Some people think that he’s doing the best job possible, and some people question if he’s not. Only time will tell.
PPG is a misleading stat with so many loser points in play.
If they win 4 in a row they are near the top of the east lol
I’m all aboard the fire Lalonde train, but the graphic is incredibly skewed. You’re taking an 82 game season and essentially plugging in 60+ 0’s into it, of course this chart is going to look like the sky is falling.
Do better. Graph through 20 games of each season to do apples to apples or something. Cmon man.
So continued improvement year after year?
One bad start to the season and these ‘fans’ go wild.
It takes years to build a contender. The way the wings operate is allowing their prospects to develop. We slot in older players to play a role and help the younger NHL players. The team wasn’t going to make the playoffs this season.
Potentially, There are two more seasons of this type of hockey before they have a true playoff team.