Derek Lalonde’s tenure with the Detroit Red Wings ended in boos, a 4-0 no-show against the St. Louis Blues on Monday before he was released during the NHL’s Christmas break.

For Lalonde, a lame-duck coach in the final year of his contract, it had always felt like a question of when, not if, he would be fired. Whether in the middle of this season or in the summer when his contract expires, he would not be the Red Wings’ coach heading into the 2025-26 season.

While Steve Yzerman rarely explains his logic to anyone outside his inner circle, there was always a feeling in Detroit that the Red Wings GM didn’t want an interim coach and was instead looking for a longer-term solution to stabilize another stumbling block in the city’s Yzerplan rebuild.

So Todd McLellan got the call, got to bring his top assistant Trent Yawney with him and will sign a new multi-year deal Friday morning before the Red Wings host the Toronto Maple Leafs

Now, before we get into what McLellan has to offer, we must acknowledge one of the things that ultimately doomed Lalonde’s tenure in Detroit – he couldn’t help the team overcome any form of adversity.

When the Red Wings missed the playoffs in 2024 due to a tiebreaker, it was largely because they went 4-10-0 in games without their captain, Dylan Larkin. When Simon Edvinsson was injured last week against the Montreal Canadiens, the Red Wings quickly unraveled in the following two games.

It doesn’t just depend on Lalonde, it also depends a lot on the players and Yzerman’s decisions, but it’s all reflective a culture that is calm and break easily after years of losing. Lalonde’s job as head coach was to do his best to change the culture and reverse the accepted mediocrity, and he has proven over the last two seasons that he is not the emotional leader to do that.

There will be a lot of clichés about Lalonde tomorrow when the Red Wings hold their first post-news media sessions – about how he’s a good person and how it’s on the team, not him – but it’s all just window dressing Bigger problem to hide on simple website.

The Red Wings have flaws, even major flaws, and they needed a coach willing to do more to push the buttons.

Instead, especially in his final season, Lalonde became more interested in risk management than anything else. He was never concerned with winning games with his line decisions, but rather with how he could limit the opposing team. Defense became the goal and so did everything else.

It was also a very delicate defensive conundrum built around a few individuals, and when those individuals disappeared or had a rough night – like Larkin or Edvinsson – the rest of the team seemed to unravel as well.

Lalonde knew this, and whether he admitted it or not, it was one of the reasons why he simply accepted or made excuses for experienced players who were struggling, while younger players like Jonatan Berggren would bear the brunt of the criticism.

Vladimir Tarasenko, for example, was never challenged, never cut, and never moved down the lineup despite being a negative player. The decision to sign him rests with Yzerman, but the lack of creativity in his management lies with the coaching staff.

Another example: Ben Chiarot isn’t nearly as bad as some fans want to believe, but he’s also not nearly as good as Lalonde would praise him both internally and publicly.

From a squad perspective: as I wrote last monthThere isn’t much hope of building a winner in Detroit right now. There are some encouraging future assets, but still more questions than answers.

While the Red Wings haven’t announced how long the multi-year deal is, it’s likely something McLellan brought up in his contract negotiations – he’ll need more than a season and a half to figure that out and will have to hope what his GM has out learned from the mistakes of the past.

In the short term, McLellan needs to find a way to avoid rocking the team’s foundation if a key player goes down. In the long term, he needs to completely recode the Red Wings culture so that it revives, which I don’t think is possible under the current regime.

Think about it this way. When it comes to Yzerman and the Red Wings, everything is still tied to the number 19 hanging in the rafters, rather than the overall work he did as a leader in Detroit.

Whether you liked Jake Walman or not, and I personally liked it, One of the main reasons for his mysterious move to the San Jose Sharks defended by some, it was because Yzerman had done it and there had to be a bigger plan.

Midway through the 2024-25 season, the Red Wings’ defense is struggling to move the puck, and Walman ranks 12th in the league in points among defensemen. Shayne Gostisbehere was also allowed to leave in favor of Erik Gustafsson. Gostisbehere (now at Carolina) is one of the few defensemen who offers even a higher level offensively than Walman.

Yzerman is starting to come under public pressure, but it’s still muted, and there will be some places that actually praise him today for firing Lalonde, a mini victory lap during a downturn.

Here’s the reality: Hope for a triumphant “Yzerplan” now revolves heavily around McLellan pulling a rabbit out of the hat that has become a very ugly hat. Possible, sure, but explaining how and why he will do it again raises more questions than answers.