97.1 the Ticket’s Will Burchfield offers something of a post-script to the Red Wings’ re-signing of Lucas Raymond on Monday night:
Raymond is a rudder for the Red Wings, who are starting to turn the corner. The 22-year-old forward nearly propelled the team into the playoffs last season for the first time in eight years. He put up career best numbers and “down the stretch,” as Steve Yzerman said Tuesday, “took his game to another level.” 14 of his 31 goals came in the final 18 games, and several of them were clutch.
“I think I figured out a lot of things about my game, what makes me good, and how to be able to do that on a consistent basis,” Raymond said.
And what did he figure out?
“Just the way that I perform the best when I play a certain way, my movement on the ice, the physical aspect was for sure one part of it, and my skating,” said Raymond. “That made it a lot easier, and also something to fall back on, when you might not be feeling great, to find your rhythm again. Trying to build off of that.”
…
“I’m not the biggest guy out there, but you get in those situations and get physical, that usually helps you get into the game a little bit easier,” he said. “I felt that was a big thing. Maybe it was a little bit of a conscious (decision) to do it, but I think that came naturally as well.”
The Red Wings have every reason to believe that Raymond’s surge at the end of last season was a sign of things to come. Their commitment to the player only backfires if he regresses. Yzerman is confident that Raymond will reach “another level” yet. His maturation was most evident last season when the Wings lost their captain and No. 1 center Dylan Larkin for several weeks to an injury and Raymond shined without him.
“He’s (been) our best player, I think,” Moritz Seider said at the time. “Even in tough stretches, he finds a way to get on the board, stay in it, play the right way. I think he’s just taken a real big step compared to last year.”
