Detroit Hockey Now’s Max Smith discusses Lucas Raymond’s status as a dominant player over the course of his still-young NHL career, even though Smith sees Raymond’s 50+-assist season as something of a “mixed bag”:
In his age 23 season last year Raymond largely continued on the path that he had set up for himself through the previous four years in the league. After reaching 80 points in the 2024-25 season, the first Red Wing to do so since Henrik Zetterberg, expectations were high for Raymond.
While he performed at close to the same level as he had the previous year, his numbers did dip down to 76 points. He had two fewer goals and two fewer assists than the year before, and he still hasn’t scored 30+ goals since the 2023-24 campaign.
No. 23 also found himself missing a pair of games due to an upper body injury early in the season. That injury seemed to have an effect on Raymond even in the later months of the year, frustrating fans and coach Todd McLellan at times as he seemed gun shy with the puck on his stick.
However, while Raymond’s actual offensive output dropped, his underlying numbers stayed at a solid level. Raymond’s shooting percentage by the end of the season sat at 14.5%, better than the Red Wings’ leading scorer, Alex DeBrincat’s, at 14.2%. Though, Raymond’s xGF% and GF% sit below DeBrincat’s, at 48.81% and 49.49% respectively according to Statpede.
Continued; we all know that Raymond needs to shoot the puck more regularly this upcoming season, but last year, Raymond established himself as an elite playmaker, too.
