Yzerman Steps Down as Lightning GM, BriseBois Takes Over

There’s a new General Manager in town as Julien BriseBois was named to the position of Vice President, General Manager and Alternate Governor of the Tampa Bay Lightning on Tuesday afternoon. Steve Yzerman stepped aside to become Senior Advisor to the General Manager in the final year of his contract with the franchise’s front office.

Yzerman cited wanting to spend more time with his family as the 53-year-old former NHLer has been commuting from Detroit to Tampa, The Athletic‘s Pierre LeBrun noted in a tweet.

Yzerman all these years has been commuting from Detroit to Tampa Bay, his family had stayed behind in Michigan. It takes a toll. I can’t say I saw this coming at all, but you can certainly understand the reason why. https://t.co/TB6a5sIFIn

— Pierre LeBrun (@PierreVLeBrun) September 11, 2018

BriseBois becomes the seventh General Manager in Lightning history, inheriting a team loaded with talent stockpiled over the tenure of Yzerman at the reins.

A native of Greenland Park, Quebec, BriseBois, 41, had served as Tampa’s Assistant General Manager under Yzerman since the 2010-11 season after previously working for the Montreal Canadiens as their Vice President of Hockey Operations. He also had been the General Manager of the Syracuse Crunch– Tampa’s current AHL affiliate– during his role under Yzerman.

Rumors have swirled before that the Detroit Red Wings are looking to shake up their front office during their ongoing rebuild, but the earliest the Red Wings could begin to interview Yzerman– should he be interested– wouldn’t be until his contract runs out with Tampa. Additionally, current Detroit GM Ken Holland, 62, signed a two-year extension last season through the end of 2019-20.

That’s right about the time the prospective expansion team in Seattle would be courting potential candidates for their General Manager position too.

For now, let the speculation run wild if you must, but The Athletic‘s Craig Custance has already laid out all the facts.

For those speculating about Detroit, here’s what we know:
– Holland signed 2-year extension with the Red Wings in April
– per @JoeSmithTB, Yzerman has one year left on his deal w/TB
– There’s an internal appetite to sort out future roles for current Detroit management group

— Craig Custance (@CraigCustance) September 11, 2018

Yzerman’s tenure with the Lightning will go down as a memorable one– including a 2015 Stanley Cup Final appearance– despite not winning a Cup.

On a roster that already included Steven Stamkos and Victor Hedman, Yzerman added players like Ryan Callahan in the Martin St. Louis trade with the New York Rangers, J.T. Miller and Ryan McDonagh in the Vladislav Namestnikov deal with New York and Mikhail Sergachev from the Montreal Canadiens in exchange for Jonathan Drouin over the years while drafting Nikita Kucherov in 2011 and Andrei Vasilevskiy in 2012.

He also was responsible for signing an undrafted Tyler Johnson in 2011.

Tampa had a 340-222-60 record with Yzerman as their General Manager (2010-18). During that time, the Lightning’s best season record (54-23-5, 113 points) in franchise history was just last season (2017-18).