*large sniff*
You smell that? It’s Red Wings hockey, baby. (unclear if the smell is good or bad)
The Detroit Red Wings open the 2024-2025 NHL regular season on Thursday night against the Pittsburgh Penguins at Little Caesars Arena. It’s been a tumultuous offseason off acquistions and cheek-clenching RFA signings. Now, we can finally get down to brass tacks and see what this Red Wings team will look like after narrowly missing the Stanley Cup Playoffs last season. We’ve got some bold predictions for you!
WIIM BOLD PREDICTIONS
Our predictions will be broken down by each writer we have with a planned “audit” article planned after the regular season. Two precitions for the Red Wings, one for the NHL. Keep the receipts, but please be kind. 🙂
EmergencyBackupCoach
Red Wings Bold Prediction
By the end of the season the Red Wings will boast 3 point-per-game players and 3 40-goal scorers. No way Debrincat allows another snake to bite him this year, Larkin finally gets the health luck he deserves, and Raymond gets Hart consideration leading the team in both Goals and Assists. With these three going off, there’s a chance Kane joins them in the ppg category.
Red Wings Bold Prediction
Yzerman makes a splashy, costly trade for a top-15 center. After waiving Holl and putting Husso on LTIR, Yzerman has just enough wiggle room to ship out Compher, Berggren, and a painful package of high picks for a bona fide 1B pivot.
NHL Bold Prediction
Florida misses the playoffs. The seesaw that is Sergei Bobrovsky’s goaltending comes crashing down to the tune of an .875 sv %, and the hangover of a 7-game Stanley Cup Final run leads to lackluster performance out of the gate and a few too many key injuries throughout the season. All eleven remaining fans in Miami come April rue the departure of resurgent 20-goal scorer Vlad Tarasenko as the missing ingredient.
Kyle Kujawa
Red Wings Bold Prediction
Instant impact Edvinsson. It’s a little challenging to quantify what makes a successful season for a defenseman, but I watch a lot of Griffins and think that Edvinsson hype train is running more calmly than it should. It’ll be difficult to compare to Seider’s rookie season, because he walked into a more depleted lineup, but if you squint, you’ll see more similarities than differences in their first full year of impact. They aren’t exactly the same style — Edvinsson might be more gaffe-prone but is a smoother skater with better hands. It’ll take him a bit to learn the acceptable levels of risk, but I think by the end of the year we’ll be able to check three boxes: that he’s no doubt Detroit’s second-best defenseman, that he made Jeff Petry more bearable (assuming that is his primary partner), and that he is the biggest difference maker on my next bold prediction.
Red Wings Bold Prediction
A top-half defensive team. Maybe top-10 would put the bold on this bold prediction, but given that Detroit ranked 25th in goals against and seemingly no pundit thinks they managed to improve their defense, I think calling for the Red Wings to slot in around 12-16 is qualifies here. They certainly aren’t a top-10 defensive team, but the difference from where they finished (274) to what the teams ranked 12-16 allowed (245-251) is not the jump people might think. Cam Talbot offers a stable baseline in net who can be counted on, with Alex Lyon and Ville Husso able to take the reins should their play warrant that, which will lead to overall improvement at that position. On top of that, I believe Edvinsson will help stabilize the second pair and eventually take some of the load off Seider’s plate, and I think the coaching staff will slightly tweak systems to emphasize a little more defense from the team overall, since they will not as easily be able to outscore their mistakes.
NHL Bold Prediction
Luck catches up to Vegas. What the Golden Knights have accomplished as an expansion team is remarkable. I also think there’s a price, and they’re about to pay it. I don’t believe Vegas will make the playoffs this season. Over time, some of the bargains they’ve acquired have earned bigger deals or moved elsewhere, and their years of trading top prospects for win-now talent leaves depth depleted. This summer, they lost the likes of Chandler Stephenson and Jonathan Marchessault (who I think was the heart and soul of that team) and replaced them with cheap talent that has flamed out elsewhere like Alexander Holtz and Victor Olofsson. Sure, that does sound like the kind of risk-taking that made them so good in the first place, but I don’t see it happening again. On top of that, I’m not a huge believer in the Adin Hill/Ilya Samsonov tandem, and their priciest talent (Eichel, Hertl, Stone, Pietrangelo) have each had major injuries in their past. I don’t think the depth will get them through if the injury bug strikes.
Riley
Red Wings Bold Prediction
Lucas Raymond will finish with over 110 points. I haven’t been quiet about it. I think Lucas Raymond is about to become an absolute star in this league. He went on an absolute rampage in the second half of last season and at his young age, there’s still room to improve. I think we see Razor’s full breakout this season.
Red Wings Bold Prediction
The Red Wings join the Lions and Tigers in ending their playoff win drought. Sports are on the come up in Detroit (except for the Pistons) with both the Lions and Tigers ending their long playoff droughts in 2024. A lot of people have the Red Wings on the edge of the playoffs in a brutal Atlantic division but I think they don’t just make the playoffs. I think they’re building a team that is perfect for winning in the playoffs and they’ll get that first series win this season.
NHL Bold Prediction
Someone in the NHL will reach 164 points. Last year, I made a similar prediction with my guess that an NHL player would score 70 goals for the first time in 30 years and Auston Matthews finished exactly one goal shy of that mark. Individual scoring continues to be on the rise and it’s coming from more than just Connor McDavid. An NHL player hasn’t averaged 2 points per game for a full season since Mario Lemieux in 1995-96. I think that changes this season with McDavid, Nikita Kucherov and Nathan MacKinnon all as potential candidates.
Scout
Red Wings Bold Prediction
Vladimir Tarasenko will have an offensive production similar to those he had with the St. Louis Blues.
Red Wings Bold Prediction
Ville Husso will return to pre-injury form and the tandem of Husso-Lyon will bring the Red Wings to the playoffs.
NHL Bold Prediction
The Utah Hockey Team will sneak into the playoffs as a wild card team.
helmerroids
Red Wings Bold Prediction
Lucas Raymond will not score any OT goals during the regular season
Red Wings Bold Prediction
The Wings will sweep the season series vs. the Lightning
NHL Bold Prediction
No Canadian team will make it past the second round of the playoffs
KyleWIIM
Red Wings Bold Prediction
The Red Wings will make the playoffs. Maybe that’s not a bold prediction for you, but it is in my world. 😉 I think the Wings are being written off. Yes, this division is a meatgrinder but they nearly made the cut last season and I expect the team will play with a chip on its shoulder.
Red Wings Bold Prediction
Sebastian Cossa has more than two starts…. with the Red Wings. Things would have to go REAL south if this were to happen, but I like it for the chaos vibes. Cossa gets some NHL time. He’ll do fine.
NHL Bold Prediction
The Edmonton Oilers get punched out in the first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. Anything can happen in this league! Even the Oilers missing the playoffs. They shit the bed in the SCF and hired a bad GM to replace Ken Holland. Hopefully they enjoy Cancun a little earlier this season.
Got any bold predictions? Drop it in the comments and let the discourse begin!!! Let’s have some fun this season, folks. We don’t do that enough these days.
