![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/USATSI_27470546-scaled.jpg\")
<\/p>\nANAHEIM, Calif. \u2014 Here are a few facts about the 2025-26 Detroit Red Wings, 12 games into their season.<\/p>\n
At 8-4, the Red Wings are tied for first in the Atlantic Division, albeit with one more game played than the Montreal Canadiens. They have a top-10 power play and a top-10 penalty kill. And they entered Friday night\u2019s game against the Anaheim Ducks with a positive expected goals share at 5-on-5 \u2014 something they haven\u2019t done over a full season in a decade.<\/p>\n
They are, by almost any measure, improved from the team they were last year \u2014 and from the team they\u2019ve been through their nine-year playoff drought. Even though it\u2019s early, it\u2019s fair to say they have a real chance to break that drought this year.<\/p>\n
However, here are some other things about them.<\/p>\n
They have had a concerning habit of giving up rush chances and getting burned by them. They have had a few too many starts that have been slow or sloppy. And Friday in Anaheim, that all showed up in a 5-2 loss to the Ducks.<\/p>\n
So they\u2019re a flawed team, too.<\/p>\n
And here\u2019s the thing you should really know: That\u2019s true of nearly every NHL team this season, with very few looking like juggernauts through October.<\/p>\n
Vegas, Colorado and Carolina do, but that was expected. What\u2019s more notable is just how open, and even, the rest of the picture looks right now, as the calendar turns to November. The Atlantic alone has the Canadiens and Red Wings up top at 16 points each, and then the rest of the division between 11 and 13 points \u2014 all of them within a point of .500. And the Metropolitan division doesn\u2019t have a single team below .500.<\/p>\n
Part of that is the early-season small sample, to be sure. Some teams will heat up, and others will fall off, but not all of them. A few weeks in, this looks like a season that will be defined by parity.<\/p>\n
So where does that leave these improved, flawed Red Wings? In a pretty good place, having banked some early points against top competition, and with plenty of room for more improvement. At least, as long as they\u2019re able to actually make some progress, which, to their credit, they\u2019ve shown an ability to do thus far.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re trying to figure things out,\u201d head coach Todd McLellan said. \u201cWe\u2019re going to have some good days. We\u2019re going to have bad stretches. We\u2019re going to need practice time. We\u2019re going to need rest. Last time I checked, we\u2019re a team that\u2019s just trying to really work hard to get into the playoffs, so we\u2019ve got a lot of learning lessons.\u201d<\/p>\n
Much of that is due to the number of young players the Red Wings are carrying. Detroit\u2019s 20-year-old rookies \u2014 forward Emmitt Finnie and defenseman Axel Sandin-Pellikka \u2014 have gotten most of the attention in that regard, but they\u2019re far from the only young players on the roster. Center Marco Kasper is 21. Defenseman Simon Edvinsson is 22. Blueliner Albert Johansson is 24, but still has only 73 NHL games to his name. Winger Elmer S\u00f6derblom, also 24, has even fewer (54).<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n Red Wings defenseman Simon Edvinsson, one of Detroit\u2019s younger players, pushes Ducks defenseman Olen Zellweger into the net. (Kiyoshi Mio \/ Imagn Images)<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a young team, and at times they\u2019ve looked that way. Kasper \u2014 off a two-goal performance in a wild victory in Los Angeles one night earlier \u2014 had one such play Friday, forcing a pass on an odd-man rush that led to a rush (and goal) the other way. Edvinsson took an early third-period penalty that allowed the Ducks to turn a 3-2 lead into a much tougher 4-2 game.<\/p>\n
And on a night like Friday, when a quiet locker room clears out quickly on the heels of a frustrating loss, those moments are certainly the focus.<\/p>\n
\u201cOverall, very disappointing,\u201d defenseman Moritz Seider said of the showing against the Ducks. \u201cI think we\u2019ve got to come up with a better game plan, especially for such a meaningful game, first and foremost for (goaltender John Gibson,<\/a> who was playing in Anaheim for the first time since being traded to Detroit this summer). Unacceptable to kind of let him hang in there sometimes. And then obviously frustration takes over, you get away from your game a little bit.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI think we gave ourselves a lot of trouble tonight,\u201d winger Lucas Raymond added. \u201cI think it was more so a lot of self-inflicted stuff out there for us, and yeah, not good enough.\u201d<\/p>\n That\u2019s all true, of course. The Red Wings gave up another shorthanded goal, sent the Ducks to the power play five times and didn\u2019t make the most of their chances on a night where there was plenty of action in both directions. It\u2019s been true on other nights this season, too, and you can bet it\u2019ll be true in more to come. If it shows up too often, it could start to feel like a long year.<\/p>\n Yet, it\u2019s just as notable that these 8-4 Red Wings still have a lot more in them \u2014 that for as much as their flaws are real, they have strengths that have yet to be fully tapped into, and players whose contributions can still go way up.<\/p>\n Take Raymond, for example. Detroit\u2019s leading scorer from last season had a goal and an assist Friday, bringing his season total to 11 points in 10 games. And yet, he hasn\u2019t looked his best since he missed time with an injury in the second week of the season. Or take Edvinsson and Kasper, who have been up and down after being such breakout stories in their first full seasons a year ago. A key piece of their top six and power play, Patrick Kane, hasn\u2019t played in two full weeks.<\/p>\n On one hand, Detroit would surely love to be getting more from those players \u2014 and to have them all healthy. On the other, might this mean the Red Wings have something to look forward to when those players round into form? It\u2019s a lot to chew on.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re a mixed bag at this point,\u201d McLellan said. \u201cBut we have opportunity for growth and we\u2019re looking forward to getting better.\u201d<\/p>\n That point is hard to argue. The Red Wings were certainly not at their best Friday, even though they skated hard and maintained some of their calling cards (like their newly-improved penalty kill). They saw familiar issues pop up with their decision-making, and yet they also had a real chance to win the game entering the third period. The Red Wings also have a chance to secure a winning road trip Sunday in San Jose.<\/p>\n However, while Detroit does at times feel like a team of contrasts, that doesn\u2019t mean the Red Wings are particularly hard to figure out.<\/p>\n They\u2019ve gotten a couple of tight games to go their way \u2014 like Cam Talbot\u2019s early-season steal<\/a> in Toronto, and a s<\/a>econd-chance victory<\/a> in Los Angeles Thursday \u2014 but if you check under the hood, their 8-4 record doesn\u2019t look undeserved. They\u2019ve mostly earned what they\u2019ve gotten, on the good nights and on the bad.<\/p>\n Improved? No question. Flawed? Absolutely.<\/p>\n And 12 games into the season, they are in a good place in the standings, which leaves the Red Wings with two things: a great opportunity ahead of them, and a lot of work to do.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ANAHEIM, Calif. \u2014 Here are a few facts about the 2025-26 Detroit Red Wings, 12 games into their…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":348878,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[2993,293,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-348877","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-detroit-red-wings","9":"tag-nhl","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-united-states","12":"tag-unitedstates","13":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115476643774502342","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348877","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=348877"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348877\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/348878"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=348877"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=348877"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=348877"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}