“Down Goes Brown,” a.k.a. Sean McIndoe, has posted an article in which he “finds hope” for the NHL’s “10 most hopeless teams.” As you might expect, such a list includes the Red Wings:\
The projections say: About 80 points, good for sixth in the Atlantic but just a 1-in-20 shot at the playoffs.
Why they’re probably right: Dom [Luszczyszyn]’s take on the Red Wings was “Patience. Patience. Patience.” To which I might add: Also consider patience. Steve Yzerman is executing on a burn-it-all-down rebuild, and that means a few years near the league basement. This is another one of those years, and the team seems fine with it. There are pieces in place and more on the way, and reason to believe they could be better this year. But “better” doesn’t get them all that close to “good.”
But hear me out … : One of the challenges with writing this post every year is coming up with a way to say “Goaltending is weird and hard to predict and this team will improve a lot if they’re suddenly really good in net” ten different ways. It’s basically true of every NHL team. But it’s really true of the Red Wings, who haven’t had strong goaltending in a long time but might this year.
Alex Nedeljkovic is one the most interesting players in the league this year because we don’t quite know what he is. The Hurricanes didn’t seem to have much faith in him, and his track record doesn’t give us much to go on, but he was very good in his 23 games last year. If that turns out to be who he really is, then the Wings landed an elite starter for next-to-nothing. And elite starters have been known to carry other mediocre teams a long way.
You could argue that the Wings aren’t even mediocre yet, and you might be right. But then you factor in the debut of Moritz Seider and wonder if he can pull off something close to a Makar/Hughes level of impact. Jakub Vrana might be poised for a major breakout, Filip Zadina still has lots of room to grow at 21, and Dylan Larkin is in his prime. If everyone exceeds expectations, is that enough? Only if Nedeljkovic stands on his head. But he might.
Continued (paywall); and honestly? I’m not concerned about the Red Wings’ goaltending being otherworldly. I’m concerned about the Wings getting some depth scoring and re-setting their special teams play.
“Ned” should be okay. The team in front of him needs to score some more goals.
Ned would be probably be pretty good with Tampa, but there are some issues that hopefully are starting to get addressed before the puck gets to him.
I don’t know how many years it will be before the Wings are back in the hunt. Some very good young prospects still need sometime to adjust.
I do agree scoring more goals would help shorten the rebuild. I am in no rush as long as there is improvement every year. Until then “Will See” for me.