Sportsnet’s Rory Boylen offers suggestions as to what fans should remember about their respective NHL teams as the NHL preseason begins tonight, and he offers a couple of tired old tropes about the Red Wings:
Detroit Red Wings: The ‘Yzerplan’ is entering its seventh season
Patience is the key to a successful rebuild and the Detroit market has certainly been that as the Red Wings have worked through some pretty low lows that will hopefully one day pay off. Two years ago, they were within a whisker of a tie-breaker of making the playoffs, but were passed by division rivals Montreal and Ottawa, who qualified in 2025, while Detroit fell short by five points. They’re not far off, but that patience is starting to wear thin in the market; even captain Dylan Larkin expressed some frustration that the front office didn’t add more to help the team at last year’s trade deadline. Marco Kasper finished strong last season, giving hope that he can have a breakout season. Simon Edvinsson will be looked at to take on a greater role in his second full season from the back end, but he’ll miss training camp with an injury. Detroit has missed the playoffs for nine consecutive years, and we have to wonder what the reaction would be if that’s extended to 10.
Continued; I think that these hockey experts need to talk to actual Red Wings fans in Michigan regarding the team’s rebuild.
Yes, fans are impatient; yes, the team raised ticket prices; yes, it’s been a long summer of not many moves due to a thin free agent marketplace and a ridiculously high set of trade prices…
But Larkin is not in revolt, Yzerman is not going to be fired any time soon, and the team is going to do it’s damn best to make prove people wrong and make the playoffs this season.
It’s the beginning of the 2025-2026 season, and everybody has a chance to get the job done, even if their chances are not exactly “slam dunks.”
I’m not dropping my optimism about this year’s Red Wings team just because the “experts” say that I should be in panic in Hockeytown.
