REPORT: Steve Yzerman Is Stepping Down As General Manager In Tampa
Holy shit. Well this came out of absolutely nowhere. Steve Yzerman is no longer the general manager of the Tampa Bay Lightning and this is absolutely huge news for everybody in the league who has been trying to figure out just how in the heck Yzerman has been able to do the things that he’s done in Tampa over the past few years. He managed to wait out the Jonathan Drouin situation long enough to get a high end player like Mikhail Sergachev out of Montreal. He was able to get Steven Stamkos to stay in Tampa long term instead of signing with Toronto, and he did it for only $8.5M. He locked in Norris Trophy winner Victor Hedman for only $7.85M while guys like Doughty and Karlsson are commanding $11M. He might have had to bite a little hard on Kucherov’s new contract but when you compare $9.5M to a contract like McDavid’s, that’s still a major discount. Now I know that a lot of this has to do with the whole no state income tax in Florida but Steve Yzerman has been a goddamn wizard so far in his time with Tampa Bay. Whether it’s trades, signing, drafting guys like Brayden Point. Steve Yzerman has assembled a wagon in Tampa who are constantly considered Stanley Cup contenders. And today he’s stepping down as GM and serving as a “senior advisor”, whatever the hell that is.
Now you have to wonder what brought on this decision. Is there something in the works here with Detroit? That seems like the only reasonable next step for Steve Yzerman. The man is too good at what he’s doing to not be a general manager in the National Hockey League. You look at all the other bozos who are currently running teams (mostly in Canada at the moment) and you know that there are at least 20 different teams who would love to hire him. But how many other organizations could Steve Yzerman possibly go to that would be an upgrade from Tampa? Detroit sure as shit isn’t an upgrade but he spent his whole career there, he won Stanley Cups there, maybe he wants to be a part of rebuilding a dynasty. Either that or he’s just ready to call it a career and chill out at home with the family. But the fact that this is his decision to step down as general manager while he’s still under contract with an absolutely loaded contract leads me to believe that there’s something more in the works here and this was just step #1 to making it happen.
Either way, you have to feel pretty good right now if you’re one of the other 30 GMs in the league. Imagine having to go into trade talks with Steve Yzerman. The dude is intimidating as fuck. Like shit your pants scary. You’re never going to pull one over on that guy. You’re never going to fleece Steve Yzerman because if you even attempt to do so, he will kick your ass. So if there was ever a time to attempt a trade with Tampa, right now is the golden opportunity.