This morning’s a haven for Red Wings-related gloom and doom.
The Red Wings have already earned an “F” for their offseason moves (or the lack thereof) over the course of the summer of 2026 from Bleacher Report’s Adam Gretz.
Now The Athletic’s Sean McIndoe paints a very, very bleak picture of Detroit’s 2026-2027 season outlook as part of the NHL’s “Bottom Feeder Division” in McIndoe’s NHL prediction/preview column:
Detroit Red Wings
Last season: 41-31-10, -15 goals differential, missed playoffs.
Their offseason in six words: Captain quits. GM fired. Replacement … eventually.
Why they’re here: Because the offseason was a mess, from Dylan Larkin’s trade request to Steve Yzerman’s late exit to whatever it is they think they’re doing now. It was the league’s weirdest offseason, and almost certainly its worst.
Is that making some of us forget that this was a 92-point team last year, with room to move up just based on young players improving? That’s the danger, and if any team could play the “nobody believes in us” card, it might be this one, with even their own fans largely turning on them. It just feels like it’s going to get worse before it gets better, and maybe by a lot.
Continued (paywall); again, I’m as pissed off about the Red Wings’ lack of offseason “oomph” as anyone here.
My take (it’s long): I honestly got really angry when we found out that the team didn’t sign Anthony Mantha to a 1-year contract because Shawn Horcoff wasn’t allowed to make trades or sign free agents. Mantha isn’t a superstar, but he could have helped the Wings, as could have several free agents who signed later in the summer (hello, New York Rangers forward Eeli Tolvanen).
I’m OK with Shawn Horcoff only being named an “interim” GM while the organization looks for an analytically-driven director of hockey operations, but I’m not OK with the team probably not signing restricted free agent Simon Edvinsson to a contract at the last frickin’ minute before the regular season starts…
And I’m just not surprised that the Dylan Larkin trade situation didn’t work out given that Larkin never opened his trade list to teams other than the Vegas Golden Knights, Florida Panthers and Minnesota Wild (and the Dallas Stars? Depending on whom you believe?).
I believe that, at this point, a trade to Minnesota feels almost inevitable, and I do believe that his trade demand will be accommodated sometime during the upcoming season, but his press conference was a disaster of non-answer after non-answer as Horcoff and the PR team held kid gloves over an uncomfortable and really unwilling-to-talk Larkin, and that treatment just hasn’t been earned.
It’s time for the Red Wings’ front office to get its shit together and get to work, obviously…
But I’m a little more optimistic regarding the team’s outlook. Detroit’s team isn’t overwhelmingly deep this upcoming season, and there are legitimate concerns about the Wings’ offense (or the lack thereof), but I believe they’ll be more competitive than people think, and if things break their way injury-wise, they can compete for a Wild Card spot amongst the Eastern Conference’s middling teams.
Doing so won’t be easy by any means, but injury luck and circumstance indicate to me that coach McLellan can get the players on the same page in terms of consistency, the Red Wings’ players can play a harder, faster and edgier game, and if the goaltending, defense and special teams hold up, all is not lost yet.
We shall see how things transpire over the course of 84 regular season games. I am hopeful, if not a little optimistic…
But it’s been one hell of a shitty offseason, and an unsatisfactory one at that, and that’s on the Wings’ “dysfunction” over the course of the past summer, all the way to this very day.
