The NHL standings are ridiculous. For proof, we present the 2024-25 Detroit Red Wings.
To describe the Wings' performance this season as lackadaisical is being kind. They are possessing the puck just 46.7 percent of the time, according to even-strength Corsi. Their penalty killing unit is the NHL’s second worst.
They get outshot on a regular basis, even when they win. They are averaging less than 20 shots on goal per game, second least in the league. A typical period sees the Red Wings outshot by an 8-6 margin.
They have less sizzle than a porterhouse nestled in a snow pile.
It’s bad. It’s boring. It’s a bummer.
Yet, a quick glance at the standings suggests the Red Wings are very much in the playoff hunt. Such is a world where merely reaching overtime results in a point. The Wings are just four points out of the Eastern Conference’s final wild card spot. It’s so misleading, and part of the NHL’s shell game insinuating there is parity.
For one thing, Tampa Bay, currently occupying the last wild card position, has played two less games than the Red Wings. For another, there are five teams between Detroit and Tampa Bay. Most relevant is that the Wings are just one point ahead of Montreal, the worst team in the Eastern Conference.
The Red Wings don’t have the excuse of being a young team. Their average age is 29.2, considerably above the league average of 28.6.
Actually, the Red Wings’ youth is their saving grace. Lucas Raymond is a budding star on pace for an 88-point, 32-goal season. His metrics are solid, as are those of Dylan Larkin and Alex DeBrincat and the exceptional young defense pairing of Moritz Seider and Simon Edvinsson.
They are all younger than the league average, Larkin and DeBrincat barely, the other three considerably. Any energy the Red Wings have displayed has come from those players.
The rest of the team has flat-out underachieved.
Detroit’s veteran players are not responding well to coach Derek Lalonde. He was hired before the 2022-23 season. Of the NHL’s 32 teams, 22 hired their current coaches in 2023 or 2024. By NHL standards, Lalonde, whose first two teams collapsed late in the season and missed playoffs, has been given much by general manager Steve Yzerman. Seems like too much, though.
Yzerman, although drafting well, has mostly miscalculated with his veteran talent evaluation. Ben Chiarot, Justin Holl, Jeff Petry and Patrick Kane have little left in the tank. Yzerman gave J.T. Compher and Andrew Copp nice contracts as free agents, but they have been the definition of mediocrity.
Offseason additions Vladimir Tarasenko and Erik Gustafsson have equally disappointed, while Michael Rasmussen and, particularly, Joe Veleno have proven Yzerman’s trust in giving them extensions was misguided.
The NHL is the only league that holds out a piece of garbage in an open hand and implies that it’s gold. Don’t be fooled. The Red Wings are currently doing the same things and expecting a different result. While that is not actually insanity like the cliché, it’s not good, either.
This doesn’t look like a playoff team. It seems lost.
Yzerman needs some answers.
Or this season will be lost, too.
Regardless of what the NHL would have you believe.