The Athletic’s Dom Luszczyszyn and Shayna Goldman posted a Red Wings season preview, and they feel that Detroit “isn’t ready” to take the next step yet:
Slow and steady wins the race, but for the Red Wings rebuild it feels like it’s time to start getting a move on. Detroit has missed the playoffs in six straight seasons now and all signs point to that streak extending to seven by year’s end. The Red Wings have just an 11 percent shot at making the playoffs.
To be fair, that’s not quite the goal yet for this franchise. Slow and steady, right?
Detroit has been methodical with its process and this season’s plan is merely to start turning things around. Start is the keyword. Becoming a true bonafide playoff team usually doesn’t happen overnight. It takes time to put all the pieces into place. The goal isn’t to just be a playoff team either. It’s to build a perennial contender. That takes a lot of patience, which means understanding when to keep things cooking in the oven for a little longer.
Detroit isn’t ready yet.
For this season, the plan is to simply stop losing and start winning. A playoff berth would be fantastic, but it’s a bit unrealistic still at this stage. An 82-to-83-point season would be a massive stepping stone for this club. It means inching closer towards average, keeping games tight and a lot of moral victories. That’s unfortunately still the stage the team is in, but that’s OK because it will likely all be worth it soon enough.
The Red Wings are much deeper this year, which is the primary cause of the jump in projected points, but there’s still a lot of work to be done before the team is on par with other playoff teams. That’s especially true in a competitive Eastern Conference where the field ahead of Detroit is extremely strong. The average playoff team in the East is projected for 102.3 points with the lowest at 94.5 points. Detroit is still pretty far away from that level.
Continued (paywall)
