Horcoff Gets the Job. Now He Has About Eight Days to Do It.

The Red Wings named Shawn Horcoff interim general manager on September 15, ending two months without a head of hockey operations. The title is interim, the mandate is not: the eight-year extension deadline is right there, and Larkin, Raymond, and Edvinsson are all unsigned.

Horcoff is a former NHL center who spent the bulk of his playing career in Edmonton, so he knows what a franchise looks like when it's waiting too long on its best players. Detroit has been in that holding pattern since Steve Yzerman stepped down in July. DeBrincat said publicly he wants to stay, Edvinsson is expected at camp despite still being a restricted free agent, and the Buium deal has already pushed the market in a direction that makes Edvinsson's number harder to predict. That's the inbox on day one.

The extension deadline doesn't care about the interim tag. My read is that Horcoff's first real test isn't a press conference — it's whether he can get Larkin's situation moving before the window for a maximum-term deal closes. Everything else, the goaltending depth, the injured forwards, the broader roster rebuild, follows from that. The leadership vacuum is closed. The clock was already running.