It’s Time For The Detroit Red Wings’ Renaissance
By Ant Barberio
Last week I went to watch my New Jersey Devils beat the Florida Panthers in a rather surprising and high scoring upset. Halfway across the country, The Detroit Red Wings pulled off another upset against another top three team in the league the Edmonton Oilers. Don’t look now but the long suffering Red Wings who have been downright unwatchable at times over the past few seasons are above .500 at 8-7-2. With a win versus a quality team like Edmonton, it might not just be an early season fluke.
Fans have been patient with general manager and franchise icon Steve Yzerman as he crafts his “Yzer-plan” to get the team back to contention. It looks like they’re at least there with their ceiling and full potential not yet reached. So what has led to the Red Wings renaissance?
Yzerman has been reliant on drafting European players with his high picks, instead of the more traditional Canadians, Americans, and Russians. His three first-round picks since taking over as general manager in 2019 have been Moritz Seider, Lucas Raymond, and Simon Edvinsson. They are from Germany, Sweden, and Sweden, respectively. Yzerman broke that trend with his second first-round pick in the 2021 draft, selecting Canadian goaltender Sebastian Cossa.
One thing you cannot accuse the Red Wings of having is luck in the draft lottery. Detroit hasn’t picked higher than fourth overall in the Steve Yzerman era. That fourth overall pick came during a season Detroit sported a league-worst record of 17-49-5, yet the New York Rangers were given the first overall pick.
After years of rebuilding, the Detroit Red Wings are good again. Are they good enough to earn a spot in the playoffs or are they not there yet?
Yes, that was an odd circumstance of a shortened season. Detroit had a 0.275 point percentage and New York had a .564 points percentage and made the “playoffs”, if you consider the 24 team play in that season as “playoffs”. Considering the NHL counts stats from that 24 team play in as “playoff” stats, we’ll consider it the playoffs for the purpose of making our point that Yzerman was given no love or special treatment when those lottery balls fell where they did.
Yzerman might have the last laugh. As one Twitter user @StatBoy_Steven pointed out, Seider and Raymond have eight (yes, EIGHT) times as many points this season as Alexis LaFreniere and Kaapo Kakko (as of last week, now Seider and Raymond only have four times as many points) for the New York Rangers. Kappo and Lafreniere were taking second and first in the same back-to-back drafts Seider and Raymond were taken fourth and sixth.
Detroit may not have the explosive offensive power of a team like Edmonton, but their 3.07 goals per game is good enough to be in the top half of the league offensively. That’s a massive improvement from last season when they were second to last with 2.23 goals per game. The wonder duo of Seider and Raymond didn’t play a season game for Detroit during the 2020-2021 season.
It may be early in the season, but a 14 game sample size is enough to start separating the pretenders from the contenders. Detroit currently sits fourth in their division and is currently in a wild card playoff spot. That’s bound to change as you expect teams other in their division to start playing better. Last week the Tampa Bay Lightning, Toronto Maple Leafs, and Boston Bruins were all the next three teams behind them. Now Tampa and Toronto are ahead.
Will Detroit be a top three team in their division? I wouldn’t bet on it, but crazier things have happened. Will they be in the mix for an Eastern Division wild card? If they keep playing like this then absolutely. There’s some concerning things about Detroit. For example, all seven of their regulation losses have been by multiple goals. For the first time since Pavel Datsyuk wore a Red Wings sweater Detroit will be playing meaningful hockey late in the season.