from Dom Luszczyszyn of The Athletic,
It’s that time of year again, another edition of the annual front office confidence rankings. How much trust does each team’s front office deserve? That’s the question we try to answer here using the power of the fans to make their voices heard every offseason.
4. Detroit Red Wngs
My, oh my, what a climb for the Red Wings. It is very hard to get this kind of vote of confidence from a team that had such an abysmal season last year, but Red Wings fans are very high on the Yzerplan. Detroit got top five grades in every category except trading, where the Red Wings were sixth. Just 0.1 percent of Red Wings fans are less confident than they were a year ago, which ranks second to the top team on this list at zero percent.
This might be a case of relativity given how Ken Holland’s tenure ended, but with Steve Yzerman there’s a crystal clear vision in place, one Red Wings fans are on board with. The rebuild is in full swing and Yzerman has done well so far to accumulate picks and make good selections. He’s cleared out a lot of bad money and made some shrewd free-agent signings that could pay off in the form of future draft pick capital.
It’s all very promising right now, but there’s also a chance the fans are acting a bit overzealous at the moment with regards to their front office. The public is pretty high on Detroit, ranking them in the top five, but not nearly to the same degree that fans have, with the 1.1-point difference tied with Minnesota for the highest. The primary concern is roster building where it’s a little implausible that the league’s worst team in the middle of a rebuild should be third – 19th feels a lot more appropriate. It’s reminiscent of the scores Devils fans gave Ray Shero last year a few months before he was fired after a spectacular offseason didn’t lead to any on-ice success.
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