The Athletic’s Max Bultman makes 10 predictions regarding events which he believes will happen over the course of the Red Wings’ 2026-2027 season. Let’s start at the top:

1. Dylan Larkin is traded by Dec. 1

The Larkin situation is hard to handicap. Even beyond Larkin’s trade list, which will continue to play a big part in the process, the Red Wings have to be willing to make a deal knowing the return likely won’t be players who can match Larkin’s Day 1 impact. Realistically, there’s going to have to be a futures component to this.

And yet, eventually, the distraction factor is impossible to avoid for both parties. While the Red Wings are indeed a better team with Larkin in their lineup, everyone will still benefit from a fresh start. Both sides will have to work together to close the book on this saga, and I bet a few weeks of seeing it play out will be enough incentive to wrap it up.

I’ll say Larkin is dealt within the first two months of the season.

Bultman is not so optimistic about the team’s attempts to battle through the season and earn a playoff spot, however:

According to MLive’s Ansar Khan, coach Todd McLellan has spoken with Red Wings forward Lucas Raymond regarding shooting the puck more, and he’s hoping that Raymond takes heed:

Raymond averaged 2.16 shots per game [last season], down slightly from 2.34 the season before. He’s scored 25 and 27 goals in each of the past two seasons after producing a career-high 31 in 2023-24. McLellan believes he can flirt with the 40-goal mark if he unleashes his shot a little more.

“He’s got a tremendous shot,” McLellan said. “When I sat with him and we looked at numbers and the amount of shots, he is a 30- goal-scorer who gets compared to the 40-goal scorers like DeBrincat. The difference between the two — and they get equal opportunity — I think Razor can get his number up there.

“You take simple shooting percentage. If he can run it at 11, 12 percent, just keep firing away. Now, it’s not done erratically where it makes no sense. Hold on to the puck then. But if he has it, I’d rather him shoot it than defer to anybody else. Maybe to Cat, that’s it.”

Raymond suggests that he understands where McLellan is coming from:

“If you can keep the same shooting percentage and increase your shots, you’re going to score more goals,” Raymond said. “For sure, I want to shoot the puck. I like my shot, but I play my game and I’m not going to shoot for the sake of it, but for sure want to get my shot volume up.

“You set goals coming into a year, maybe not so much stat-based, but maybe your play-wise and what you want to get out of game. You look at shots, that’s one of those things, trying to increase the shots.”

The Free Press’s Helene St. James discusses the Red Wings’ opportunity to respond to the chaos surrounding the team by winning hockey games, duly noting that the “weirdness” surrounding the team remains a roar of white noise:

“As simple as it is, I think that just calms everything,” Moritz Seider said. “Calms a lot of noise, calms a lot of weirdness that maybe came with the summer. Points on the board is a really good answer to a lot of those things.”

…

“Since camp has started, it’s been pretty normal for us,” Andrew Copp said. “We’ve been worried about our systems, figuring out linemate chemistry, how our own individual games are going, our team game, all that kind of stuff. I would say that it was tumultuous for a while there in the summer, but since we had Larks talk to the team, and [Shawn Horcoff] was named GM and he talked to the team, and since then training camp started, it’s been pretty normal.

“Now we need to get off to a fast start and build confidence and get everything focused on hockey.”

St. James quotes coach Todd McLellan extensively in her long article, and his bottom line is the team’s bottom line:

WDIV posted a video “short” of Lucas Raymond, Moritz Seider and coach Todd McLellan discussing Simon Edvinsson’s situation with the Red Wings as the big Swede remains unsigned. Posted after a “jump” due to formatting:

According to PuckPedia’s Steve Werier, there is a way in which the Red Wings could still lose Simon Edvinsson’s services to an offer sheet:

On July 1, Simon Edvinsson became a restricted free agent. 

As of Sept. 30, the 23-year-old defenceman hasn’t signed a new contract with Detroit. He also hasn’t signed an offer sheet from a rival club, even though he’s eligibleto receive one. 

Let’s talk about that last part.  

Offer sheets have almost always been signed during the offseason months, including the two most recent examples (Leo Carlsson and Barrett Hayton). That makes sense, as teams like to set their roster and cap as early as possible, and they prefer to act on offer sheets before another club or the player’s existing team signs the player.  

And so you might ask: “Well, if anyone was going to sign Edvinsson to an offer sheet, why haven’t they done it already?”

There’s at least one good reason. 

By waiting, a rival team can weaponize the calendar against the Red Wings and structure an offer sheet around a never-before-leveraged pressure point.

Continue reading…

Red Wings prospect and University of Minnesota-Duluth captain Max Plante spoke with College Hockey News’s Avash Karla regarding his decision to return to UMD after winning last season’s Hobey Baker Award.

Max chose to decline a professional contract offer from Detroit to play alongside his brothers, Penguins prospect Zam and Red Wings prospect Victor, this upcoming season, and Max is also remarkably grounded regarding his status as one of college hockey’s best players:

A season ago, Minnesota Duluth’s Max Plante was arguably the most dynamic offensive player in college hockey. The Detroit Red Wings prospect scored 25 goals and 27 assists in 40 games, led UMD in scoring, earned NCHC Player of the Year honors, was named a first-team All-American and became the seventh Bulldog to win the Hobey Baker Award. His 52 points were the most by a UMD player since 2011-12, and his 26 goals were the program’s most since Mike Connolly scored 28 in 2010-11.

Then, instead of turning pro like the majority of Hobey winners before him, Plante quickly announced his intention to come back to Duluth for his junior year.

“Winning the Hobey Baker is pretty special and means you’re a pretty good player,” Plante said. “But I’m still only a 20-year old kid, still haven’t won a conference championship or national championship, and that’s the goal playing hockey. Knowing we had other guys on our team turn down NHL contracts helped me with my decision and my goals. I’d like to keep some of my goals personal. But with the group coming back, we have some real chance to win some games.”

Minnesota-Duluth coach Scott Sandelin has promised that he’s going to start the season with a Plante-Plante-Plante line…

As posted by ESPN’s Greg Wyshynski…

The Hockey News’s Grahame Nichols noted that Red Wings defenseman Moritz Seider and Ottawa Senators forward Tim Stuetzle are starting a podcast…

Tim Stützle and Moritz Seider are launching a podcast. Time to brush up on my German. pic.twitter.com/20SvaMd52j

— Graeme Nichols (@GraemeNichols) September 30, 2026

Here’s what Kicker.de says about the podcast:

Seider & Stützle – New Hockey Podcast by kicker and Ice Hockey NEWS

Rivals on the ice, and now partners at the microphone. NHL stars Moritz Seider and Tim Stützle go amongst podcasters and share insights from their lives on the ice. What stories unite the two national players.

The 2026/2027 NHL season has begun, and seven German stars are firmly under contract. Two of them have sought a “side hustle” just in time for the league start. Seider & Stützle is the new kicker ice hockey podcast by and featuring Moritz Seider (Detroit Red Wings, 25) and Tim Stützle (Ottawa Senators, 24).

The national team players have known each other since days together in the offspring of the Adler Mannheim. They competed for Germany at the Olympics and call themselves very good friends. In the summer, they spend their holidays together and push each other to top performances in training, on the beach or on the improvised soccer field in the vacation home.

Apart from former MVP Leon Draisaitl (Edmonton Oilers, 30), Seider and Stützle are considered the best German ice hockey players. Seider is among the league’s strongest defenders, while striker Stützle scores excellent goals year after year.

Red Wings defenseman Simon Edvinsson may be training with Frolunda HC back in Gothenburg, Sweden while his contract impasse with the Red Wings continues, but the Wings’ beat writers report that his teammates have taken no offense to Edvinsson’s course of action.

Moritz Seider, Andrew Copp and Lucas Raymond discussed the issue with the Free Press’s Helene St. James…

“We just know that he wants to be here,” teammate Moritz Seider said after practice. “We want him here, and that’s the bottom line. Everyone has to fight for their own contracts, and we all have his back and we support him. And we’re just looking forward to when he eventually signs, hopefully sooner rather than late because he’s a big part of our team, a big part of this organization and, moving forward, he will be a big piece to our success.”

…

The Wings open the 2026-27 season on Friday, Oct. 2, when they host the New York Rangers. Edvinsson could make the opener if he’s signed in the next 24 hours, though it would require an early morning flight from Sweden connecting through a major international airport like Amsterdam Schipol airport or Paris Charles De Gaulle.

“The situation is an important one, but we have so much to worry about in here,” Andrew Copp said. “I can’t really worry about if Simon is going to be here Friday or not. That’s not my job. We want Simon here. He’s a fantastic player, he’s going to be a huge player for us for a long time, but none of us can control whether he’s going to be here Friday or not.”

Two years ago, under former general manager Steve Yzerman, then-RFAs Seider and Lucas Raymond did not sign new deals until right around the start of camp.

“I think as a teammate, you’re making sure that he’s in a good mindset,” Raymond said. “You kind of let all the business side to the front office. That’s all we can do. Simon’s a great player. He’s a great guy. He’s a big part of our team and we want him here. But at the same time, that’s not really in our control. We’re focused on Friday.”

Marco Kasper continued while speaking with the Hockey News’s Michael Whitaker…

The Red Wings engaged in some team-building activities over the course of yesterday’s “off day,” and coach Todd McLellan spoke with the Free Press’s Helene St. James about Detroit’s players’ paintball excursion:

“We took the team away from the rink with four practice days,” McLellan said. “We went away. It’s not anything that we’ve done since I’ve been here. Actually, we did do it way, way back. My first go-around, but we took the group out and did a real good workout. They had a little bit of fun and there was some team elements in it that they had to work through some problems and some issues. They had to take care of each other. So it was, in my opinion, a productive day.”

Holding training camp in Traverse City usually served as several days worth of bonding, but the Wings switched to holding camp at Little Caesars Arena this year.

“Traverse City, there’s a lot of that going on, but it’s more small groups,” McLellan said. “You go golfing, you’re in a force. I mean, you see the other guys on the other hole. This was one big group. Everybody was together. The coaches were there. I’ll just leave it at that. It was a real good day.”

Asked if any players in particular stood out, McLellan smiled.

“We stayed in the safe zone, put it that way,” he said of the coaching staff, “so we couldn’t really see what was happening. It’s not just out blasting guys. There were some games, there were some tactics, there was, you know, taking care of a teammate. Yeah, there was a lot of laughs and a few welts, so that’s OK.”

Continued; MLive’s Ansar Khan also posted a story about the team-bonding activity:

“We’re trying to keep everybody unified, everybody believing in the purpose and the goal,” coach Todd McLellan said. “And we’re also being realistic. There’s going to be some bumps in the road. We’re going to have to get through it. We’re not putting our heads in the sand and pretending some of these issues don’t exist. We’re dealing with them. And once we deal with them, especially internally, — externally, we can’t really worry about it — that will give us a chance and that can be our rallying point.”

McLellan described it as a real good workout and a little bit of fun.

“There was some team elements in it that they had to work through, some problems and some issues,” he said. “They had to take care of each other. So it was, in my opinion, a productive day.”

When training camp was in Traverse City, players would get together in small groups to golf, fish or do other activities. McLellan liked that this was an activity for the entire team.

“Everybody was together,” he said. “It’s something that the coaching staff wanted to do. The players bought into it immediately, and the organization set it up, so everybody played a role in it.”

I’ve been worried about team-building exercises given that training camp wasn’t held in Traverse City, where the players were pretty much forced to golf, fish, hang out, have dinners together and spend time together in the hotel. It sounds like the team has been taking care of the team-building and team bonding stuff fairly well.

DetroitRedWings.com’s Jonathan Mills spoke with Red Wings forward Emmitt Finnie regarding Finnie’s preparations for his sophomore NHL campaign:

“I feel like you learn a lot in that first year,” Finnie said. “I definitely learned a lot about myself and my game. I’m looking forward to this season.”

Named the 2025-26 Red Wings Rookie of the Year by the Detroit Sports Media (DSM) this summer, Finnie appeared in all 82 games and recorded 30 points (13 goals, 17 assists) last season. A determined mindset helped Finnie make the most of his opportunities early on, leading to top-line minutes and trust from Detroit’s coaching staff and his teammates alike.

“It was just wanting more,” Finnie said. “I had a good start to the season, but I didn’t want to feel satisfied. I wanted to stay on this team for the full season, so I feel like I made that a focus point for myself. I just wanted to do everything I could to stick and make an impact.”

Finnie told Mills that he spent the offseason increasing his fitness level: