It’s been two weeks now since the Detroit Red Wings announced a leadership change atop their front office, with Steve Yzerman transitioning from general manager to a senior adviser to owner Chris Ilitch and the organization launching a search for Yzerman’s replacement.

That move set up a massive decision for the franchise, which holds the NHL’s longest active playoff drought at 10 years. As the calendar nears August, there’s no resolution yet.

But after numerous conversations with contacts around the sport over the past two weeks, here’s my understanding of where things stand.

If it’s seemed a little quiet around Detroit’s search so far, the best explanation I can give is probably the simplest: They’re still pretty early in the process.

Yes, the Red Wings started this search late. Typically, front office exits such as Yzerman’s occur in mid-April; starting a search in mid-July creates obvious potential complications — namely, that training camp begins in seven weeks. But my sense is that Detroit is focused on conducting a thorough search, and that’s going to take time. The Red Wings aren’t going to compromise the process for the sake of speed.

While there is some important business that needs to get done — restricted free agent Simon Edvinsson needs a new contract, and the Dylan Larkin saga remains unresolved — one difference in Detroit’s search taking place now, rather than at the start of the offseason, is that the Red Wings don’t have to worry about any other teams scooping up a potential candidate. They’re the only team in the market.

As for what they’re looking for, while you can expect the Red Wings to cast a wide net, they’ll be interested in candidates who bring an innovative approach to the front office. When the leadership change was announced, I pointed to the other Ilitch-owned Detroit sports team, MLB’s Tigers, as an example: In 2022, the Tigers hired Scott Harris as president of baseball operations and have since made major investments into analytics, biomechanics, player development and more.

That doesn’t mean the Red Wings’ next hire will automatically come from a data and analytics background, though it is one way to modernize and an area the Red Wings would do well to beef up. But it’s not the only element of a front office, nor is it a cure-all solution.

So, while there are certainly interesting names out there from data-centric backgrounds, such as Buffalo Sabres VP of hockey strategy Sam Ventura or Carolina Hurricanes assistant GM Tyler Dellow, there are likewise potential candidates from other backgrounds who could be considered. The agent-turned-executive pipeline has been quite fruitful in the modern NHL, and someone like Florida Panthers assistant GM Brett Peterson fits that mold as he helped transform Florida into a perennial power.

Those names are examples, but they typify two very different backgrounds that would fit the bill of forward-thinking hires, and there are surely more. It also doesn’t rule out internal candidates, such as assistant GM Shawn Horcoff, though the external search is widespread.

In short, the specific backgrounds of the top candidates will be less important than their ability to lead a modernized hockey operations department that cohesively blends scouting, player development, and every other element. Interestingly, the Tigers’ current general manager, Jeff Greenberg, was once tasked with a similar job in the Chicago Blackhawks front office, working as an associate general manager under Kyle Davidson before being hired away by the Tigers. Chicago finished last in the Central Division during that 2022-23 season with 59 points.

With the MLB trade deadline on Monday, and Detroit currently at the center of that market, this wouldn’t be a great time for the Red Wings to be dividing Greenberg’s attention. But after that deadline passes, I do wonder if Greenberg is someone the Red Wings could reach out to, either for input into the search or perhaps even as a potential candidate.

At a minimum, getting his input would be in line with how the organization has operated previously. When the Tigers hired Harris back in 2022, Yzerman actually helped in that process. So, it wouldn’t surprise me in the least if the Red Wings take a similar approach with this search, having other leaders from both the sports and non-sports facets of Ilitch Holdings involved. Ilitch is leading the search, with Ilitch Sports + Entertainment president Ryan Gustafson also part of the committee.

And while the initial announcement of the leadership change said that Yzerman will serve in an advisory capacity on the search committee, in addition to being an adviser to Ilitch, my understanding remains that Yzerman will not be involved in hockey decisions in the next front office. That’s important; the new head of hockey ops will have autonomy to execute their own vision.

I’m also under the impression that the Red Wings will be open to different structures for the new front office — whether that’s only a GM, a president-GM combo, or whatever it needs to look like. That keeps with the theme here: The Red Wings seem to be going into this process very open-minded about the outcome.

Perhaps the breadth of that process helps explain why it could take some time to conclude.

That said, time does matter for the summer’s key remaining pieces of business. Detroit’s announcement said Yzerman will remain in his current role to facilitate day-to-day hockey operations in the interim, but for any major transactions, there’s a clear incentive for the next general manager to set the direction.

The simplest, but most pressing, example is Edvinsson, Detroit’s top-pair defenseman who will need a new contract for the coming season. While the Red Wings could technically sign Edvinsson to his new deal before hiring a new GM, it’s obviously ideal if the next head of hockey operations is involved in that contract. Signing Edvinsson to a short-term bridge, for example, could easily disrupt an incoming GM’s cost certainty and miss an opportunity to secure a key piece of the Red Wings’ future.

A new GM’s vision is arguably even more important in the case of the Red Wings’ leading scorer, Alex DeBrincat, albeit with less time pressure. DeBrincat remains under contract for the coming season, but he’s now eligible for an extension, and having a strong sense of his future would also help guide the new head of hockey ops.

And then there’s the biggest question of all: how a new general manager will want to handle Larkin and his trade request. That was the story of Detroit’s summer before the Red Wings’ GM change, and while Yzerman’s departure (and this search) have shifted the attention, Larkin’s future remains a huge question, a story that will only gain momentum as training camp nears.

Will the new GM want to try to persuade Larkin to rescind his request? Will they want to instead move more toward a reset and get to work on moving the longtime captain? We simply can’t know until there’s a hire in place.

And from the sounds of it, that may still be a while.