Of Red Wings-related note this morning:
- The Free Press’s Helene St. James wonders aloud whether the Red Wings’ rebuild is complete, as some of the team’s players have suggested:
When does a rebuild end? When a team advances to the playoffs? The Detroit Red Wings haven’t made it that far in nine years, but as they embark on the 2025-26 season, they don’t want to hear any more about how they are a work in progress.
“You are only in the NHL for so long,” said veteran forward Andrew Copp, now in his fourth season with the Wings. “Guys in here could be in their last year, they could be in their first year. We’re no longer developing. That was a word here for a while – development, rebuilding and all that. We’re done with that.”
St. James points out that the Red Wings have coach Todd McLellan to thank, in part, anyway, for the steps which the team has taken in a forward direction, and that the team has a better goaltending tandem at present…
“He’s super-honest, he’s very detailed, demanding, isn’t afraid to speak up and that’s exactly what we need right now,” defenseman Moritz Seider said. “We need a little bit of guidance and structure and he definitely provides that, with the whole team behind him.”
Beyond structure, the key to success for any team usually comes down to special teams and goaltending – and then some.
“You can throw in health and streakiness ,trying to maintain the good and eliminate the bad,” McLellan said. “But it can really go on and on for a long period. A lot of things have to go right for us and it’s up to us to make them happen.”
But she also notes that the Wings’ players aren’t necessarily talking about a miraculous run to a playoff spot just yet:
Veteran Patrick Kane, a three-time Stanley Cup champion, offered some sound advice for teammates concerned about the playoffs: “I think for us, that’s a main focus, but it’s more important to go day-to-day right now instead of worrying about that. We try to put ourselves in a position to get off to a good start. If we worry about making the playoffs in (October), it’s just too much.”
Maybe not so much worry, then, as a sense of awareness. Cast a cold eye on 2023-24, when the Wings missed the playoffs on a tiebreaker, and it’s hard not to point to how the Wings undermined themselves in performances against inferior opponents: Blowing a 4-0 lead to the San Jose Sharks on Dec. 7 of that season to lose in overtime, and two lifeless outings against the Arizona Coyotes in March. Just one point in any one of those games, and the drought would have ended.
Instead, they go into a season that will celebrate the franchise’s arrival in Detroit in the fall of 1926 with making the playoffs more central to their purpose than ever.
“Who knows how long any of us have left in the NHL,” Copp said. “It’s such a brief time in your life. You can’t really take it for granted.”
2. St. James also posted a column in which the Wings’ players discuss the benefits of preparing for this season under the guidance of coach McLellan:
“I feel most prepared for the season coming out of a training camp that I have in a while,” said Dylan Larkin, who is in his 11th season with the team. “I think everyone should probably feel that as well.”
It has been three weeks since the Wings gathered in Traverse City to begin official preparations for the 2025-26 season. Now the opener is finally here: Thursday, Oct. 9, against the Montreal Canadiens. The Wings will wear their centennial uniforms as they host the Montreal Canadiens, a fellow Original Six squad, at Little Caesars Arena (7 p.m., FanDuel Sports Network Detroit).
When the Wings went through their coaching change during the holiday break last December, there was one morning skate for the Wings to prepare for their first game with McLellan behind the bench. Now they’ve had a couple dozen instruction sessions, from practices to eight exhibition games.
“I think we can say we’re definitely really good prepared for hopefully a good start,” defenseman Moritz Seider said. “It’s great. I mean, we have so much time so we can just pick a whole system apart kind of and go through it step by step and that’s what we did.”
For all the time spent preparing, a real game is a welcome sight. McLellan described the players as antsy to get going.
“We should never say this,” he said, “but I think the guys are sick and tired of practicing and training camp and everything they want to get going. And we do as well. We need some evidence now, we need to catch them doing things right, doing things wrong. Where do we need to take our game, what do we need to work on and they need to experience the intensity of a real game.”
