It's hard to imagine any team has tarnished their reputation quite like the Detroit Red Wings have this offseason.
This is an exhaustive list of everything that's gone wrong since the end of last season:
- Former captain Dylan Larkin requested a trade from the Red Wings.
- The team traded former first round pick Sebastian Cossa -- a 23-year-old netminder who never got a shot at the NHL.
- General Manager Steve Yzerman stepped down from his role with the organization.
- Red Wings CEO and owner Chris Ilitch hired an outside firm to conduct a search for Yzerman's replacement. According to NHL insider Elliotte Friedman, many of his candidates never received an interview at all.
- After two and a half months of searching, Ilitch haphazardly made assistant general manager Shawn Horcoff the interim GM until the search concluded.
- All Shawn Horcoff had to do during his first two weeks was sign number two defenseman Simon Edvinsson to a contract. He failed to do so.
- A few days before the start of the season, Edvinsson made his way to Sweden to practice and stay in shape. This, bafflingly, surprised Horcoff. How in the world it could have surprised him is beyond anyone's understanding.
- It was reported that Edvinsson sought a contract around the $9-10 million a year range. Some reports indicate that Horcoff and the Red Wings were attempting to get Edvinsson down below Moritz Seider's $8.55M a year salary. There's genuinely no reason the team should be doing this.
- Last night, Elliotte Friedman reported that Edvinsson wants out of Detroit.
BREAKING: Simon Edvinsson prefers to be traded out of Detroit, per @FriedgeHNIC. pic.twitter.com/lyyrAENEIn
October 4, 2026How did it get to this point? How did a team this prestigious get to this level of malpractice?
Hard to feel any excitement at this point
How in the world are fans supposed to be excited about this team? They've squandered every opportunity they had to both trade Dylan Larkin and find a GM. Now, bafflingly, they've tarnished their relationship with Edvinsson, who likely wants out for good.
This won't just be an Edvinsson thing, either. Players and agents talk. They're going to recongize that Detroit has an owner that insists on underpaying his players and is willing to fight over fractions of a percent's worth of salary. Chris Ilitch has repeatedly stressed that he wants to make Detroit a destination for players.
How he can say that with a straight face while he isn't even making Detroit a destination for his own players is beyond unfathomable.
Let's say everything goes as planned this season and the Red Wings luck their way into a top-five draft pick. What happens when that player is due for an extension? Is Ilitch going to demand the player take a discount or stay under Seider's number?
This is an embarrassment. The Red Wings are the most incompetent franchise in professional sports right now. They've completely ruined the relationship with a passionate young player that wanted to be there. The own fanbase has written open letters and called for Ilitch to sell the team. They're even chanting it during games now!
Ilitch doesn't seem to understand how easy trust is to break -- and how hard it is to rebuild with a fanbase. It's going to take years before they recover from a disaster of this level. From free agents to fans, people across the hockey world are making their frustrations clear.
Can you blame them?
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