Three years ago, the Detroit Red Wings rejoiced over Steve Yzerman’s return, knowing that one of their all-time greats would take over as general manager and bring the team around.

It has not yet occurred.

Coach Jeff Blashill was sacked by Yzerman on Saturday in an attempt to freshen up the rebuilding process. Including the Seattle Kraken’s inaugural season, Blashill’s seven-year winning percentage of.447 was the second-worst in the league.

With a 5-3 victory over New Jersey on Friday night, the Red Wings concluded their third season under Yzerman, although they did not make much progress in the standings while the Hall of Fame player was in command.

After losing more than one-fourth of its games in Yzerman’s debut season, Detroit finished 32-40-10 and won 39 percent of its games, hardly improving upon last year’s record.

The Red Wings finished almost 20 points ahead of the NHL’s poorest clubs this season, meaning they weren’t the worst team in the league. Still, they were over thirty points short of securing a postseason wild-card berth.

Following 25 straight postseason appearances and four Stanley Cup victories, Detroit’s run of seasons without making the playoffs reached six years.

Before he was fired, Blashill stated, “We’ve stayed in the playoff race longer than we have the prior couple of years.” We were as hopeful as we’ve been since we began the rebuild.”

Making a decision about Blashill, whose tenure coincided with a rebuilding project that would have probably doomed anyone behind the bench, was Yzerman’s first big off-season move.

Blashill, who finished the season with 204-261-72, has stated in the past few days that he is proud of the progress he has made this season and is not concerned about his future with the team.

The squad still needs to improve if it hopes to compete in its own division against teams like Boston, Toronto, Tampa Bay, and Florida, according to rookie Moritz Seider.

Seider replied, “We’re far away from it.” However, we’re making progress and are adding more components. Throughout the season, we were in competition for a wild card. We simply were unable to compete after the all-star break.