Well, this is cheery. SI Now’s Jacob Punturi examines three players who Punturi believes will “regress” during the 2024-2025 season, and his crosshairs land upon Red Wings restricted free agent forward Lucas Raymond, Florida Panthers forward Sam Reinhart, and Edmonton Oilers defenseman Evan Bouchard:
Lucas Raymond, Detroit Red Wings: The Red Wings are high on Lucas Raymond and are depending on him to keep improving his game in 2024. He’s a playmaking top-six forward with two 20+ goal and 50+ point seasons to begin his NHL career. In 2023, he jumped from 23 to 31 goals and 57 to 72 points.
Raymond is due for a regression in 2024. The Red Wings have a solid group of forwards that improved in the offseason. He could see his ice-time eaten up by the veteran duo of Patrick Kane or Vlad Tarasenko.
The real issue, like Bouchard, is Raymond’s shooting percentage skyrocketed last season. In his first two seasons, he had 12% success rate shooting the puck. In 2023, 19% of his shots on goal went in. That’s nearly one in every five shots finding the back of the net. Raymond is a quality player and still improving, but don’t count on him to record 70 points or more in 2024.
Continued; I don’t mean to be Debbie Upper here, but why not? Raymond is going to be playing with Kane or Tarasenko, most likely, and if he isn’t playing with one of those players, he’s added size and strength to his game, as well as maturity and poise.
No, he’s not going to score at nearly 20%, but he’s shown that he’s a master of adaptation to the hardest league in the world. He’ll find a way to “get ‘er done.”
