Via Paul Kukla of Abel to Yzerman, The Athletic’s Eric Duhatschek answered reader questions in a mailbag article today, and he suggests that Alex DeBrincat is not the kind of player that can will Detroit into the playoffs:
Does Alex DeBrincat push the Wings over the Playoff Plateau? — Eric P.
In a word, no. DeBrincat alone wouldn’t do it. DeBrincat and the additions the Red Wings made in free agency make them better, but probably not good enough to, in 2023-24, crack the top eight teams in the Eastern Conference. I still see the top four in the Atlantic as playoff teams — so that’s Toronto, Boston, Tampa Bay and Florida. Three make it automatically. One gets in as a wild card. The top three in the Metro also qualify for the playoffs which leaves nine remaining teams chasing the second wild-card spot in the East.
Detroit, in effect, is competing with two other rebuilding squads — Buffalo and Ottawa — to see which can make the greatest strides this season along with whatever aging Metropolitan squad doesn’t crack the top three (put Pittsburgh and Washington in this group, and maybe the Islanders as well).
It looks like, top to bottom, the Eastern Conference is getting closer, which means while the Red Wings should be a much-improved team in 2023-24, it may not be enough to get them over the playoff threshold this year. In a fairly short period of time, however, those long-in-the-teeth Eastern teams will start to sink in the standings, and that’s probably the time Detroit ascends to a playoff spot. But in the next calendar year? I predict no, not yet.
Continued (paywall); as per usual, the team that hasn’t received any draft lottery luck earns the “Least Likely to Succeed” grade, and it’s going to be up to the players to prove the experts wrong–and, perhaps, the GM to add another goal-scorer and/or depth defenseman sometime this summer or fall.
