What Derek Lalonde sees as Detroit Red Wings' GM Steve Yzerman's best trait

Steve Yzerman often watches Detroit Red Wings practices from the family room overlooking the facility inside Little Caesars Arena, but sometimes he sits where the press sits.

Whatever his point of observation, Yzerman's input is invaluable to Derek Lalonde, the man tasked by Yzerman to coach the Wings towards a more competitive future.

"It’s experience," Lalonde said. "Steve has literally seen it all. You also have to look at Steve as the manager. He went through this in Tampa, and was extremely patient with it. So it’s this trust from a coach to a management team that has experienced this before. Everyone thinks of Tampa and where they are now, but there were a lot of high picks and a lot of bad seasons on the front end of that, that led to where they are.

"Of all the qualities Steve has, [the best one] to me is, he has patience in being a manager. And that’s not easy to do sometimes."

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Since being named GM in April 2019, Yzerman has eschewed putting a date on when he expects the Wings to return to the playoffs. The lengthy playoff-berth streak that he was a part of — 25 consecutive seasons, beginning in 1991 — ended in 2016. He knows how hard it is to win: He waited 14 years as a player to win the Stanley Cup, and that was buoyed by an incredible 1989 draft (which netted Nicklas Lidstrom, Sergei Fedorov and Vladimir Konstantinov) and before the salary cap — and there were six fewer teams.

When the Wings won just 17 games in a COVID-abbreviated 2019-20 season, Yzerman pointed to a lack of talent on the roster rather than blame then-coach Jeff Blashill. But with the Wings ready to emerge from the rebuild, Yzerman brought in his own coach, who had been assistant coach while Yzerman was GM with the Tampa Bay Lightning. How well the Wings have implemented Lalonde's systems will start showing Friday when they host the Montreal Canadiens, but there's no doubt he has made a good impression in the preseason.

"He’s got a positive attitude," captain Dylan Larkin said. "He cares about his guys. He’s very detailed. Kind of different behind the bench — he’s calm. Doesn’t sweat the little things. We’re going to be, I hope, a disciplined team. It’s just a different feel and it’s been great so far."

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It isn't just Yzerman that Lalonde can lean on. The team's Detroit-based front-office personnel includes four-time Stanley Cup champions Kris Draper and Kirk Maltby. Lidstrom, a team vice president based in Sweden, was in Traverse City during training camp.

"I love some of the old guard that’s always around, guys that have won Stanley Cups," Lalonde said. "It’s very valuable."

Contact Helene St. James at hstjames@freepress.com. Follow her on Twitter @helenestjames. Read more on the Detroit Red Wings and sign up for our Red Wings newsletter. Her latest book, “On the Clock: Behind the Scenes with the Detroit Red Wings at the NHL Draft,” is available from  Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Triumph Books. Personalized copies available via her e-mail.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: What's Detroit Red Wings GM Steve Yzerman's top trait?