7 years ago, Steve Yzerman returned to Red Wings. So what's changed?

Remember April 19, 2019? It was Good Friday, and a great Friday for the Detroit Red Wings as one of the most beloved players in franchise history returned to the fold. A month earlier, the Wings had been eliminated from earning a berth in the NHL playoffs for a third straight year , but a playoff drought was expected back then – the franchise's 25 straight seasons of advancing to the playoffs had ended in 2017, and hard times were inevitable.

That was supposed to be alleviated by the return of Steve Yzerman, whose attachment to the franchise began on June 8, 1983, when he was drafted at No. 4 overall, grew in adoration as he led the way in burying the "Dead Wings" era and eventually captained the franchise to three Stanley Cups, and won a fourth as a member of the team's front office. Yzerman left the organization in 2010 to accept the general manager position of the Tampa Bay Lightning, but stepped back from that position in 2018 in the last year of his contract.

That cleared the way for Yzerman's return to Detroit, aided by Ken Holland's decision to step aside in his role as GM. Yzerman took on a monumental task. Here is a look back, on the seventh anniversary of his hiring, at how Yzerman has shaped the team, and what lies ahead.

Picking up the pieces Yzerman inherited a scrap heap of a roster, and it wasn't even clear when he took over that the first-round picks from three of the four previous years (2015's Evgeny Svechnikov, 2016's Dennis Cholowski and 2018's Filip Zadina) would turn out to be busts, a huge blow for the franchise. Dylan Larkin, Andreas Athanasiou, Tyler Bertuzzi and Anthony Mantha offered hints of a better future, but overall, the roster was weighed down by players well past their prime. There certainly wasn't what had awaited Yzerman when he joined the Lightning: A No.