The Athletic’s Dom Luszczyszyn and Scott Wheeler posted a “contention cycle” for all 32 NHL teams on Wednesday, and the Red Wings’ “window” to contend for the playoffs, if not more, is supposedly opening (under their criteria).
Not surprisingly, The Athletic’s Max Bultman questions that assertion this morning, and Luszczyszyn and Wheeler (and Shayna Goldman) then hedge their bets and suggest that, just maybe, the Wings aren’t going to contend for anything any time soon:
Bultman: As much as the depth let the Red Wings down the last couple years, I can buy a depth-based approach working for them down the line, when their farm system matures — although, full disclosure, I’ve been sort of expecting that for a few years now, with no real signs of it materializing. But even if it happens — which takes some optimism — Larkin’s seemingly inevitable departure means they’ll still need to find a true No. 1 center to actually become contenders.
I have a hunch Kasper will bounce back this season, and that would help. But even then, his ceiling is still probably more of a No. 2 than a top-line center. Danielson looks like he may end up as a bottom-six pivot. If that’s the case, I just wonder where they’d actually obtain a true top-line center in a post-Larkin world. The answer is usually the draft, but if the rest of the core — led by Seider, Edvinsson, Raymond and DeBrincat — stays solid, they may not be picking as high as those centers tend to go.
So I guess my questions are: For Dom, would subtracting Larkin be enough to get the Red Wings into top-five pick territory in the next year or two? And for Scott, are the centers in the next two draft classes real answers to their lack of star power down the middle?
Here comes the “womp-womp”:
Wheeler: I made the glass-half-full case off the top, but I don’t malign those who are wallowing in a glass half-empty (or three-quarters-empty) state of mind about what’s ahead. Another reset feels more unpalatable because of how long it has been, but it’s likely the prudent path for the incoming general manager. I wouldn’t be surprised to see them drift back closer to the No Man’s Land quadrant when we’re sitting down to put together the 2027 version of Contention Cycle.
This was my first message to Dom when he sent me the graph after crunching the numbers: “Red Wings and Devils maybe look out of place but otherwise pretty spot on?” Those, and the Flyers, who were in my follow-up message, are the three teams we got the most pushback on. You don’t often get pushback when a team is rated highly, but such is the Red Wings’ current vibe.
Luszczyszyn is a little more optimistic:
Luszczyszyn: Having Seider, Raymond and Edvinsson is a strong starting point. DeBrincat too. But I am a lot more pessimistic than what this exercise spit out, especially with Larkin leaving. I don’t think the team needs to do a full reset, but in order to maximize the core they do have, they need to be aggressive in how they handle the next two years.
It’s clear the core still needs to add more quality to it, and Larkin leaving gives them a clear out to pursue that by being momentarily bad. Get some big futures in that trade, move out some UFAs and embrace a one-to-two year sell job with the hopes of emerging from the ashes for the 2028-29 season. The other plus: the organization can see what they actually have in the system at the NHL level. It’ll be a difficult needle to thread because Seider and Raymond are already 25 and 24, but the alternative — that they spin their wheels for the next five years — feels far more dire.
Continued (paywall)
