MLive’s Ansar Khan discusses Lucas Raymond’s resurgent scoring of late, noting that Raymond’s been able to score 4 goals over the course of the last 4 games, making up for a difficult start to the 2024-2025 regular season:
Raymond suddenly has six goals for the season, after scoring just once in the first 15 games.
“I felt like it was a matter of time because of the caliber of player, how he’s elevated his game into last year and even this year,” coach Derek Lalonde said. “So, good sign and not surprised.”
When Raymond wasn’t scoring, he was facilitating. He had 13 assists in the first 15 games. He leads the team with 22 points in 22 games.
“Obviously, it’s always fun to score,” Raymond said. “Everyone wants to score. I’m no different. But at the same time, it’s just about doing the right things and good things happen. And I think that’s kind of my mentality. Goals go up and down, whatever, but I think if you stick to doing the right things and playing your game the right way, I think good things happen.”
In his past 40 games, including the final 18 last season, Raymond has 20 goals and 23 assists.
This is pretty clever: the Red Wings had Lucas Raymond and Moritz Seider look back on their first interviews as members of the Red Wings’ organization, on draft day:
The Detroit Red Wings battle the 15-8-and-2 New Jersey Devils this afternoon (3 PM EDT start on FanDuel SportsNet Detroit/MSGN/97.1 FM).
The 10-10-and-1 Red Wings are in for quite the challenge in battling New Jersey, whose 3-0 loss to St. Louis on Wednesday snapped a 3-game winning streak. The Devils have won 5 of 7 and 8 of their past 11 games.
Several game previews popped up on Thursday afternoon and Thursday evening, including this from Field Level Media…
New Jersey, one of the top offensive teams in the league, continued its odd habit of getting shut out in its losses. The Devils were blanked at home 3-0 on Wednesday by the St. Louis Blues.
New Jersey has scored an average of 4.6 goals per game in its 10 victories since late Oct. 27. In their four losses during that stretch, the Devils have been shutout each time.
The Devils surrendered all three Blues goals Wednesday in the first period.
“It’s tough against any team when you spot them a lead like that,” Devils coach Sheldon Keefe said. “They’re parking the bus, clogging it up, making it hard to get to their net. They’re not taking any chances on offense. You have to find your way through that. Clearly, it was a struggle for us.”
New Jersey squeezed off 31 shots on goal against St. Louis goaltender Jordan Binnington and wound up frustrated.
“Lots of looks, lots of chances, posts, one of those nights it didn’t go in for us,” Devils forward Stefan Noesen said.
And in the SHL, Noah Dower Nilsson got back into Frolunda’s lineup with a shot and a -1 rating in only 4:02 played as Frolunda HC lost 3-2 to Orebro Hockey;
And Anton Johansson had an assist, finishing even with a minor penalty taken in 18:50 played as Leksands IF lost 4-1 to Brynas IF.
Wednesday’s 2-1 overtime victory over Calgary was the Wings’ third win in the last four games. The Wings have allowed six goals total in those four games, a dramatic improvement to their team defense, along with a nod to elite goaltending which has been the case for nearly the entire season.
What looked like a dire situation as the Wings were returning from California, now looks much different.
“The last four games we’ve given up six goals,” coach Derek Lalonde said. “It just gives us an opportunity. It’s the reality of winning in the league, not necessarily just us. Good buy-in from our guys, again, just a really good win.”
Goaltender Cam Talbot made 24 saves to earn the victory against Calgary, a game in which the Wings allowed few scoring chances to a deep Flames lineup. The Wings also killed three Calgary power plays until finally allowing a Flames’ power-play goal on their fourth opportunity late in the third period.
“Our D-zone has been unbelievable as of late,” Talbot said. “The guys are doing a good job clogging up the middle and making the other team give up the puck coming into our zone. Once we clean up the penalty kill a little bit here, you’ll see that number (goals against) come down even more.”
At 37, Cam Talbot isn’t a long-term solution. But the Red Wings are happy to have him locked in at a bargain $2.5 million cap hit for another season after this one. Talbot is a consistent performer who understands his profession and what it means to be a good teammate.
His presence will allow the Red Wings to decide next fall whether Sebastian Cossa is ready to play in the NHL or whether he should start the season in Grand Rapids with the idea of that he will join the team at some point next season. It could mean Alex Lyon is still in the picture as well. Make mistake: Cossa is one of the league’s top goalie prospects.
More importantly, the Red Wings have other younger goalie in the pipeline, including Michigan State’s Trey Augustine. He hasn’t hinted of his plans, but it wouldn’t be a surprise if Augustine turns pro after this season. Also, the Red Wings like Carter Gylander who is 1-0 in Grand Rapids and 5-1-2 with the Toledo Walleye of the ECHL. His Toledo numbers: 2.35 GAA and .913 save percentage.
The Red Wings aren’t the only people who’ve been riding a roller coaster this season. My health has been as unpredictable as usual, and I’m finally coming back from a month-long hiatus thanks to a flu-like illness that only antibiotics were able to knock down the bug.
So I want to thank you with all my heart for sticking around, for lurking or just stumbling back onto the site as we get ‘er back up and running. I am incredibly grateful for each and every one of you.
Long story long, the NHL’s parity parade is well underway, and while Detroit doesn’t find itself in a playoff position this American Thanksgiving, they’re within striking distance of teams with a strong record.
The Wings aren’t exactly going to catch the 18-and-5 Winnipeg Jets, but, should the Wings at least earn a couple of points over the course of Friday’s game against New Jersey and Sunday’s game against Vancouver…
Things could start looking up for the Wings in a hurry.
Now December’s schedule isn’t easy by any stretch of the imagination; the Wings will be playing every other day between tomorrow and December 9th, and they’re going to be playing 4 of 5 on the road between December 3rd and 12th.
Showdowns with Atlantic Division rivals Boston, Ottawa, Buffalo, Toronto (times two) and Montreal (times two) also loom, so, should things go south, they might go sour in a hurry.
As of November 28th, however, the Red Wings still have a tremendous opportunity to keep the good times rolling as they attempt to build upon their modest two-game winning streak when the 15-8-and-2, 4th-place-in-the-NHL Devils come to town tomorrow at 3 PM EST, and then when the 11-7-and-3 Canucks join the fray for a 12:30 PM EST matinee.
It’s not going to be easy by any stretch of the imagination for the Wings to remain on the “straight and narrow,” but the possibility is there to at least solidify a place among the Wild Card favorites by playing just a modestly good set of hockey games over the 15 games between now and the New Year.
Whether the Wings can pull it off is something I don’t really know. I wish I could pull something out of my butt and prognosticate with certainty as to what will happen going forward, but I’m a lot of things, and arrogant isn’t one of ’em.
We’re going to have to wait, hope, and see whether the Red Wings can truly steady their ship on their own, or whether the Red Wings’ GM and management team may have to make changes behind (coaching) and on the bench (player personnel) in order to shake things up and point the Wings toward the season’s halfway point (or nearly so) in good condition.
Obviously, the Wings need to keep up their stellar goaltending, strong power play performances, and rectify their even-strength scoring, their messy penalty-kill, and get veterans like Vladimir Tarasenko and Patrick Kane going, so that the team can start tapping into its secondary scoring, too.
For the present moment, it’s a middling Thanksgiving for the Red Wings, but those of us who find ourselves in the strange marriage that is a sports-partisan-and-sports-team relationship can at leas wait, hope, and see as we all ride the roller coaster that has been the 2024-2025 season.
And in the WHL, Kamloops Blazers captain Emmitt Finnie had an assist, finishing at +1 with 4 shots and a 9-for-21 faceoff record as the Blazers lost 6-2 to Spokane.
Red Wings prospects on Twitter posted Finnie’s assist:
Emmitt Finnie(7th round ‘23) 1 Assist (shorthanded) +1 4 Shots 2 PIM 9/21 FOW in a 6-2 loss. #LGRWpic.twitter.com/Nvm6bXQsQl
“I think that we’ve shown that we can play these games,” [Cam] Talbot said. “We knew that coming into this game, Calgary, they’re an aggressive team. They forecheck hard. They tend to try to just outwork their opponents and grind them down. And we bent, but we didn’t break for the most part all night. I thought if anything, we kind of took it to them for most of the game. And then we give up that late one and you can do one of two things. You can either fold and give the game back to them, or you can come out in overtime and get the game-winner. So, we did a good job mentally of not letting that one get to us and finishing the win.”
Talbot is 6-4-2 and his .921 save percentage is tied for sixth in the league among goalies with 10 or more games.
“He’s been huge for us,” [Coach Derek] Lalonde said. “He’s brought a lot to our room, too. We’ve lost some important pieces to our leadership group which a lot of teams experience just to turn over. If we play a complete game in front of him, we don’t give up easy offense, we don’t give up rushes, we don’t give up east-west stuff … it’s been pretty consistent what he’s given us.”
