UNIONDALE, N.Y. — Lane Lambert saw it right away in his teenage roommate: Steve Yzerman is driven to succeed.

Nearly four decades after they lived together as rookies in a riverfront apartment in downtown Detroit, Lambert and Yzerman may reunite as Detroit Red Wings cohorts. In his first year as general manager of the Wings, Yzerman has backed coach Jeff Blashill even as the team has plummeted to the bottom of the NHL standings, mostly because the descent reflects the lack of marquee players in the lineup. This will be the fourth straight year the Wings miss the playoffs under Blashill, though, and that could lead Yzerman to make a coaching change when the season ends.

If so, Lambert will be a top candidate.

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Lambert has been an assistant in the NHL since 2011. He followed Barry Trotz as he moved from coaching the Nashville Predators to the Washington Capitals, where they won the 2018 Stanley Cup, to now the New York Islanders. Those in Lambert's inner circle describe him as a someone with a terrific feel for coaching and who has what it takes to run a successful program.

“He’s got a really tremendous understanding of the game,” Trotz said. “He’s passionate. He’ll listen. I think he’s a demanding teacher, and he is all in on winning. There’s no agendas. You talk about the ultimate team player — that’s Lane.

“I am surprised that I still have him and that he is still a part of the staff. I think he’s well overdue — his name will be out there, for sure.”

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Yzerman may have another former teammate first on his coaching list in Gerard Gallant, who was fired by the Vegas Golden Knights in January. But Gallant already has held three NHL head coaching jobs and may prefer to go to a competitive team, not one mired in a rebuild. That’s where Lane could be a fit: He is hungry for the lead role, and he has a reputation for developing players dating back to coaching the Milwaukee Admirals, Nashville’s AHL affiliate.

“I saw how our young players improved, saw how detailed and prepared they were coming up,” Trotz said. “He really has a good understanding of all facets of the game, and he speaks from the heart.”

One of Lambert’s duties with the Islanders is running their penalty kill.

“He’s one of the most detailed coaches I’ve ever seen,” forward Brock Nelson said. “He studies the game quite a bit and knows the ins and outs of little plays that will make a big difference in the long run in the course of a game.

“He’s intense and he wants to win, and he lets you know that. At the same time, he can turn it off and just be another face and voice in the room to bounce things off of. That’s nice to have as a player.”

Lambert’s history with the Wings began June 8, 1983, when they drafted him 25th overall (future Wings nemesis Claude Lemieux was drafted at 26th by the Montreal Canadiens). Lambert was the Wings’ second selection that day, chosen after then-general manager Jimmy Devellano settled on Yzerman at fourth overall.

“Steve and I became very close early on,” Lambert told the Free Press this week. “A lot of the guys were married back then, so we struck up that relationship at the draft. It just kind of fell into place.

“I think Jimmy D probably would have preferred we lived with family, but we decided to go out on our own and see what that was all about. It worked out pretty well.”

Devellano used to stop by their apartment to check in on the rookies. Sometimes he took them to dinner.

“We were pretty raw and pretty green, and both came from sort of smaller towns in Canada and all of a sudden our eyes are wide open in Detroit, Michigan,” Lambert said. “He used to take us out and make sure that we were well fed.”

Lambert scored 20 goals as a rookie in 1983-84 but he lasted only three seasons with the Wings. His NHL career ended in 1989 after 283 games that also included stints with the New York Rangers and Quebec Nordiques. As Lambert extended his playing career overseas and in minor leagues, Yzerman became the face of the Wings. He was named captain in 1986 and was known as “The Captain” by the time he led the Wings to the 1997 Stanley Cup, ending a 42-year drought. Yzerman won the Cup again in 1998 and 2002 as a player, and in 2008 as an adviser to former general manager Ken Holland.

That’s the inner drive Lambert saw in Yzerman at 18.

“Back in those days, he strived to be the best at that age,” Lambert said. “I learned a lot from him, actually, early on from that standpoint. Even though he was younger, you could see that there was that sort of leadership quality and the desire to be the best.

“The commitment and the desire to be the best has always been there for him. It was there for him as a player, it’s there for him as a manager. It’s there for him in his everyday life. The success he has had comes as no surprise.”

Yzerman and Lambert have maintained their friendship, touching base a couple times a year.

Yzerman keeps his cards close to his chest, but as he closes in on the April 19th anniversary of his return to the Wings as GM, he has done exactly what he said he would before training camp: Observe. He delayed naming a captain because he wanted to get to know the players better, and endorsed Blashill because of his history of developing players and winning a championship at the AHL level. As he moves into his second year, Yzerman may be ready to make more of an imprint on his team, including behind the bench.

Contact Helene St. James at hstjames@freepress.com. Follow her on Twitter @helenestjames. Read more on the Detroit Red Wings and sign up for our Red Wings newsletter.