In the “They’re not gonna make it!” category this morning, ESPN’s Greg Wyshynski handicaps the playoff chances of the NHL’s 32 teams today, and he’s understandably not optimistic about the Red Wings’ stead…
Detroit Red Wings
Record: 12-14-4, 28 points
Playoff chances: 13.4%The Red Wings actually have a better probability for making the playoff cut than some of their Eastern Conference rivals, despite being projected to finish with 83 points. Detroit was 26th in the NHL after 30 games (.467), which put it about the same distance from the league basement as it did the last wild-card spot in the East.
As long as the goaltenders are either Cam Talbot or Alex Lyon, the Red Wings have had a chance to win on most nights. But they’ve squandered a lot of those chances — and a decent 5-on-5 defense — with one of the worst penalty kills in the league (67.5%), and an offense that doesn’t seem to exist outside of the top-line trio of Alex DeBrincat, Dylan Larkin and Lucas Raymond.
Cause for concern: The NHL has seen its share of teams in which one line carried them to the postseason bubble. As good as the Larkin line is offensively, it has only a 43% goals-for percentage at 5-on-5 because it gives up so much the other way. But at least the line scores: Outside of that trio, the Red Wings don’t have another forward with more than 14 points through 30 games. That’s not going to cut it in the East.
Continued; there’s no doubt that the Red Wings have often become a top-line-only team over the course of the first 30 games, but that’s a solveable problem…
And The Athletic’s Shayna Goldman discusses the struggles of the Red Wings, Buffalo Sabres and Ottawa Senators thus far, with Goldman blaming the Red Wings’ roster-building instead of the results of the roster that the team is, thus far, anyway, stuck with:
It started with a misguided offseason when Detroit sent Jake Walman to San Jose in a lopsided trade. While the move opened a roster spot for Simon Edvinsson, management didn’t make enough other key changes to improve the team’s defense. Extending Raymond and Moritz Seider may have been the primary focus in the offseason, but management should have also been looking to make cost-effective signings around their core players. The only real standout signing was goalie Cam Talbot.
The problem is this team doesn’t give their goaltenders nearly enough support. The power play may be thriving, but their five-on-five offense is among the worst in the league and this team isn’t stout enough defensively to make up for it. At five-on-five, the Red Wings sit ahead of only four teams with a 46 percent expected goal rate: the Blackhawks, Canadiens, Sharks and Ducks.
Detroit’s special-teams advantage doesn’t extend to both ends of the ice, either. The Red Wings don’t contain opposing teams’ power plays, and despite attempts to play a more aggressive style, are still getting burned consistently. Between Derek Lalonde and Bob Boughner, there are two coaches with experience running a successful penalty kill behind the bench, and yet neither has a solution this season.
The coaches shoulder some of the blame in Detroit, but the roster also has its limitations. The Yzerplan has had some highs — drafting and developing Raymond is one of the biggest success stories, and the Alex DeBrincat trade fit the Red Wings’ needs as well. But the reality is Steve Yzerman hasn’t lived up to the hype as general manager. Up front, there isn’t enough top-six talent, and the bottom six is void of offense. The defense isn’t playoff-caliber, either, which is why the coaches have no choice but to sink Seider in some of the heaviest usage in the league.
Maybe management has just identified a different playoff window, one that starts when more of their prospect pool develops into bona fide NHLers. But belief in that requires trust in the front office to build up this team when the timing is right.
I’m just of a mind right now that the team is at least good enough to stabilize its situation over the next two weeks. If Ottawa can rattle off a 5-of-6-games winning streak, the Red Wings can catch fire, especially with the Flyers, Habs (twice), Blues, Leafs, Capitals and Penguins wrapping up the 2024 part of the 2024-2025 schedule…
And if they can’t, the organization will know that it’s time to make some significant changes in order to facilitate secondary scoring and offense from the blueline.
It’s not that I’m not going to acknowledge that the Red Wings are in a tough spot right now–they are in a tough spot right now, and that’s the fault of the current coaches and players and even the management.
But it’s not all gloom and doom (yet), and to simply, “Tsk, tsk” the Wings and write them off isn’t where I’m at right now.
I’ll be the first person to point out that the Wings didn’t meaningfully replace David Perron’s vocal leadership or Shayne Gostisbehere’s prolific points from the blueline, but I don’t think that the Wings are damned to walk the nether regions of the Eastern Conference’s basement like The Ghost of Playoffs Past or something.
