A 5-0 loss punctuated a five-game skid for the Red Wings, an unfitting end to a season of growth. They finished with 80 points for the first time since Jeff Blashill’s first season as head coach, when 93 points matched their lowest full-season total in a quarter century. In Derek Lalonde’s first season, the Wings are – finally – headed in the other direction.
The Red Wings objectively made progress this season. They upgraded the roster last summer, introduced more young players as the season went on – including, at one point, all of Steve Yzerman’s top 10 picks – made a brief but exciting playoff push in February and weren’t officially out of the race until there were four games remaining. They were eliminated last year with 10 games remaining.
They also objectively stalled: they finished in the same spot in the East (12th) and only one spot better in the entire league (24th) compared to last season. For the seventh year in a row, which marks a franchise-worst playoff drought, the Red Wings will cross their fingers in the draft lottery, where they’ll have a five percent chance of winning the sweepstakes for potential franchise-changing player Connor Bedard.
Still, this was a more competitive, more well-rounded Red Wings team than any we’ve seen since Pavel Datsyuk and Henrik Zetterberg were teammates. So while they didn’t necessarily make strides relative to the rest of the NHL, they do feel further along in their (grinding, grueling, grating … eventually gratifying!?) rebuild and closer than ever to competing for a playoff spot under Yzerman.
How close? As if anyone knows for sure. The Penguins and Capitals finally slipped in the East this season, just in time for the Devils to skyrocket, for the Islanders to re-emerge and for the Sabres and Senators to surge past the Red Wings. But the Wings have more young talent coming, more draft picks and cap space to wield this summer and a more clearly-defined identity under Lalonde. At the very least, Detroit should be eyeing something more than lottery odds down the stretch next season.
Here’s what we make of their strides (and stumbles) this season, which should pay dividends (and prove costly) moving forward.
• The Red Wings answered Lalonde’s challenge to be a better defensive team, from 31st in the NHL in goals against to 22nd and from 28th in shots against to 11th. On most nights, they played smarter, more structured hockey. Lalonde likes to talk about "habits," and the Wings developed a few they can build on. As he put it, they were "committed to the defensive side of the puck."
(They were also propped up by goalie Ville Husso, who faltered down the stretch. The 28-year-old battled a lower-body injury on his way to making more starts (56) than in his first two NHL seasons combined and finished with a save percentage below .900 and a goals against average above 3.00. He remains a question mark as a No. 1 goalie. Meanwhile, Alex Nedeljkovic spent most of the season in Grand Rapids and is a pending free agent.)
But: Sebastian Cossa is coming.
• The Red Wings were much improved on special teams, from 26th on the power play to 17th and from 32nd on the penalty kill to 18th. Want progress? Their power play converted at well more than double the rate it did two seasons ago and finished above a 20 percent clip for the first time since … Datsyuk and Zetterberg were teammates. You can credit Alex Tanguay and better personnel.
• Speaking of better personnel, the Red Wings got solid returns on most of their free agent signings, especially David Perron and Dominik Kubalik, who combined for 44 goals and 13 on the power play. Olli Maatta provided top-four stability on the blueline to earn a two-year, $6 million extension.
(We say ‘most,’ because opinions vary on the two biggest signings. Andrew Copp (five years, $28 million) and Ben Chiarot (four years, $19 million) did not jolt the team the way some may have expected. To what degree Yzerman expected them to is a different question. On better teams, here’s betting both players make a more pronounced impact on winning. They’ll have plenty more seasons to prove it.)
• The Red Wings got a career year out of newly-extended captain Dylan Larkin. This probably belongs at the top. Larkin scored 32 goals and 79 points in 80 games, right on pace with elite centers like John Tavares and Jack Eichel in terms of points per game. He looked more like a captain than ever when he elevated his game after the All-Star break to get the Red Wings back in the race. As the salary cap rises, Larkin’s $8.7 million salary for the next eight seasons could turn into a bargain.
(Lucas Raymond, it must be said, took a step back after his terrific rookie season. Both the basic and fancy stats bear that out. We’ll keep it simple: Raymond fell from 23 goals and 57 points last season to 17 goals and 45 points this season, albeit in eight fewer games. More than that, he didn’t look as dangerous or daring with the puck. The NHL is a hard league. Raymond remains 21 years old and full of potential. But he needs to re-assert himself next season.)
• The Red Wings found keepers in 27-year-old defenseman Jake Walman and 23-year-old forward Michael Rasmussen. Walman found a home next to Mortiz Seider on Detroit’s top defensive pair and earned a three-year, $10.2 million extension. Rasmussen, a top-10 pick who’d been miscast as a center, found a home as a play-driving, top-nine winger. The Red Wings’ playoff push ended around the same time that Rasmussen went down for the season with a leg injury. They’ll hope he bounces back.
(The Red Wings probably don’t have a keeper in Filip Zadina, who’s running out of chances to prove otherwise. The former No. 6 pick is signed for two more seasons, but he now has 28 goals through 190 NHL games – a 12-goal, full-season pace – and doesn’t do enough without the puck to make up for what he’s failing to do with it. Zadina is a smart, conscientious player, and he was burdened this season by injuries, but it gets harder and harder to fit him in Detroit’s future if he’s not scoring goals. There are more wingers – Carter Mazur, anyone? – on the way.)
(In a similar vein, you have to feel for Robby Fabbri, who ended the season on the shelf for the second straight year with a knee injury – though in this case, not a torn ACL. Like Zadina, Fabbri is signed through 2024-25, but at some point, he has to stay healthy to stick in the Red Wings’ plans.)
• The Red Wings introduced first-round picks Simon Edvinsson (6th overall) and Marco Kasper (8th overall) and second-rounder Jonatan Berggren to the NHL. Berggren, who scored 15 goals in 67 games and aided the power play, is exactly the kind of player who could supplant Zadina. Edvinsson and Kasper weren’t around nearly as long, but both will be better for the experience when they enter camp next season fighting for jobs.
• Steve Yzerman added two more first-round picks and a second-rounder when he traded Filip Hronek and Tyler Bertuzzi at the deadline. The Bertuzzi deal felt inevitable after he and the Wings failed to make any real progress on an extension ahead of free agency. The Hronek one was more surprising, but also a nod to Yzerman’s confidence in what he has on the blueline. The Red Wings now have two first-round picks and three second-round picks this year and two first-rounders next year.
(Yzerman subtracted a player he once believed was a building block in Jakub Vrana, sending him to St. Louis to shed his contract. He’ll tell you it was “just time to move on:” Vrana missed most of last season with a shoulder injury, most of this season in the Player Assistance Program and then in Grand Rapids, and just never found his footing in Detroit. He went on to score 10 goals in 20 games with the Blues, just like he lit it up for the Red Wings after arriving from the Capitals at the deadline in 2021. We’ll see where his career takes him next.
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The Red Wings closed their season Thursday in Tampa, against the team Yzerman built. The Lightning are making their ninth trip to the playoffs in the last 10 years and hunting their third Cup in the last four years. They are what the Red Wings were. The team Yzerman’s building now is better than it was, and still far from what it can be.
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