The 45-year-old Yzerman was the choice of new owner Jeff Vinik, who fired general manager Brian Lawton in April.

 

Introducing Yzerman before a crowd of media and even some Lightning players on Tuesday, Vinik said that “upon getting to know him … I really came to the conclusion, a very strong conclusion in my mind, that Steve is the right man to bring a winning culture back to Tampa Bay, and also to build a world-class hockey organization here.”

 

Yzerman was selected to the Hockey Hall of Fame in 2009 after a 23-year playing career, all in Detroit. After retiring as a player he remained with the Red Wings as the team’s Vice President, collecting his fourth Stanley Cup in 2008. In October 2008, he was appointed Executive Director of Team Canada, which won the gold medal at the 2010 Olympics.

 

Yzerman’s contract is worth a reported $2.5 million a year for five years.

“Throughout my playing career, and into my first four years of retirement, I always had a goal to run a hockey team,” he said.

 

For a first-time general manager, Yzerman comes with considerable credentials. In addition to building Team Canada’s gold-medal winning roster, he has been part of a Red Wings club that has won nine of the past 11 division titles, with only one sub-100-point season in that span.

 

He now takes charge of a team that has played poorly outside of a four-season run (2002-2007) in which it never missed the playoffs and captured its lone Stanley Cup, in 2004. The team has since gone through three ownership groups and two general managers, with Yzerman becoming the third.

 

For the second time in two years the Lightning are also without a head coach, a position that Yzerman would like to have filled before the free-agency period begins on July 1.

 

“What I’m looking for in a head coach is a strong leader, a person who will make decisions,” he said. “A guy who’s been a head coach. Who’s had success at some levels.”

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