BLASHILL OUT AS RED WINGS COACH

The Detroit Red Wings celebrated the return of Steve Yzerman three years ago, expecting one of their all-time greats to turn around the franchise as general manager. It hasn’t happened yet.

Looking to shake up the rebuild, Yzerman fired coach Jeff Blashill after on Saturday. Blashill had a .447 points percentage, the second-worst in the league over his seven seasons, not counting the debut season of the expansion Seattle Kraken. The Red Wings, who finished the season 32-4010, weren’t the worst team in the league this season, finishing about 20 points ahead of the NHL’s worst teams. But they were nearly 30 points away from earning a playoff spot.

Detroit’s string of seasons without appearing in the playoffs stretched to six years after being in 25 straight post-seasons and winning four Stanley Cups.

Yzerman’s first major move of the off-season was to decide what to do with Blashill, whose tenure coincided with a rebuilding project that would have likely doomed anyone behind the bench.

Rookie Moritz Seider said the team has a long way to go to simply compete in its own division against Florida, Toronto, Tampa Bay and Boston.

“We’re far away from that,” Seider said.

“But we’re adding pieces and we took big strides. We were competing for a wild card for almost half the season. After the all-star break, we just couldn’t find a way to compete.”