FanDuel Sportsbook has the Detroit Red Wings at +220 to qualify for the playoffs. That\u2019s an implied probability of 31.3%. It\u2019s not hard to find folks who don\u2019t believe Detroit\u2019s odds are even that good.<\/p>\n
Many scenarios would have to go right for Detroit to end its nine-year playoff drought. You can start with the reality that the Red Wings need to score more even-strength goals in 2025-26. The Red Wings were tied for 27th last season with 143 five-on-five goals. That\u2019s 1.74 per game. Detroit needs to be above two goals per game five-on-five to be a playoff factor.<\/p>\n
The best-case scenario for Detroit would be a strong season by new goalie John Gibson (.910 save percentage or better), an offense in the top 15, a power play as good as last season and vastly improved penalty killing.<\/p>\n
But the Red Wings probably need to worry about the worst-case scenarios more than they can hope for the best-case scenarios. Here are the worst-case scenarios to qualifying for the playoffs:<\/p>\n
1. One of the Big Three Suffers Long-term Injury<\/p>\n
The Red Wings don\u2019t have depth that measures up to the NHL\u2019s top teams, or even teams in their own Atlantic Division. The loss of Moritz Seider, Lucas Raymond, or Dylan Larkin for any length of time would have devastating consequences on the team\u2019s ability to compete.<\/p>\n
2. Gibson Doesn\u2019t Deliver<\/p>\n
The Red Wings didn\u2019t land the big-name offensive player they hoped to find in the free agent marketplace. And they didn\u2019t get a chance to bid on Aaron Ekblad because he took less to stay in Florida. GM Steve Yzerman undoubtedly counting on Gibson to be the goalie he was early in his career, maybe like he was in the four-season run from 2015-16 to 2018-19 when he posted save percentages of .920, .924, .926 and .924. It would be disastrous if he was the sub-.900 goalie he was in 2022-23 and 2023-24.<\/p>\n
3.\u00a0 Power Play Drops Off<\/p>\n
The Red Wings finished fourth in the NHL last season with a 27% power play. Do we honestly believe they can match that this season? Power plays are fickle beasts. They can go from ferocious to tame almost overnight. They were ninth in 2023-24 (23%) and 17th in 2021-22 (21.1%). If the Red Wings cannot match last season\u2019s efficiency, and don\u2019t improve their five-on-five scoring, their ability to compete will be hindered.<\/p>\n
4. Penalty Kill Doesn\u2019t Improve<\/p>\n
The Red Wings were historically bad at killing penalties last season. They only thwarted 70.1%. Only late-season improvement prevented their efficiency from being below 70%. It wasn\u2019t just the numbers. It always felt like they were going to give up a goal, and often it came quickly in the power play. It\u2019s forgotten now that Bob Boughner came to Detroit with a reputation of being a quality penalty killing coach, and he just couldn\u2019t get this Detroit group organized on the kill.<\/p>\n
5. ASP Needs a Year in Grand Rapids<\/p>\n
Axel Sandin Pellikka has a chance to be a special puck-moving defenseman. The outside hope is he makes the team in training camp, but the likely scenario is he joins the Griffins for 25 games. But it may turn out he needs a full season. That would certainly be discouraging for the fan base. There\u2019s excitement over this youngster.\u00a0 They need some hope.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FanDuel Sportsbook has the Detroit Red Wings at +220 to qualify for the playoffs. That\u2019s an implied probability…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":171183,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[55379,97825,1322,293,10144,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-171182","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-axel-sandin-pellikka","9":"tag-detroit-power-play","10":"tag-featured","11":"tag-nhl","12":"tag-red-wings","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-united-states","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115082609567121164","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171182","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=171182"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171182\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/171183"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=171182"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=171182"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=171182"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}