Well, this sucks.
The margins in this league are tight. I wrote a post over the weekend fantasizing over the idea that the Islanders could ride their late-season New Coach Bump to a win over Ottawa. Had that happened, and had the Red Wings held on to one of their many one-goal leads over the Devils, we’d be in business right now. Ottawa lost to New Jersey last night, so had the hockey gods felt differently, we could be looking at a two-point gap, with a game in a hand, and some control over our fate.
The gods had already made up their minds, and Red Wings are officially eliminated from playoff contention. They now hold the longest playoff drought in the NHL at 10 years, as we now bow to our forthcoming Buffalo Sabres overlords. Bummer, man.
The reality is that it shouldn’t have even come down Saturday’s unfortunate results, between the leads blown over the last six weeks and plenty of other bad breaks throughout the year. As I’ve maintained, every team has those “few points that got away,” but it seems so much more clearly defined for the Red Wings than in years past. A stat I was keeping was our early-season record with Travis Hamonic in the lineup (not good) vs. Jacob Bernard-Docker (notably better)… It was clear to me that the team was trying to let Hamonic find a rhythm, but maybe we can lighten up on “doing right by a good pro” in the interest of “playing the players helping you win” going forward. Every point counts.
But that’s an example of cherry-picking that I’m just not a fan of. It’s not an individual player’s fault, it’s not a single decision’s fault. It’s a team sport, and that includes goaltending, coaching, management, contracts, scouting, special teams, performance of star players, maintaining intensity over 82 games; the works. Anyone can isolate a single scenario to fit their preferred narrative (myself included). It’s lazy. I don’t recommend doing it.
There will be time for post-mortems over the coming months. The same outlets producing the same post-mortems you’re tired of reading. I get it. But, let’s do it. Let’s fire off a few reasons to be positive. The doomers are salivating; they know how dumb I am. They can’t wait for the fresh meat I’m about to toss. These are dry-aged prime cuts that have more flavor than the dull sports-radio takes (a sinewy, unseasoned chewy slab that cooks unevenly) that are on special at the moment.
1. Consider a screenshot:
This is not current, but it may as well be. I grabbed this an hour or so after Detroit earned that ‘E.’ Look, it’s not the first time the current playoff format has disadvantaged a team; I’ve longed for a return to the 1-to-8 format that honestly, probably wouldn’t see Detroit make the playoffs either.
But this is absurd. Only two teams in this picture are out of playoff contention, and one of them is right at the top. There is a world in which the Red Wings finish as the 11th-place team in the 32-team NHL, and people want to blow it up? Please. I’m not here to tell you this season was a success. But there’s something worth building off. Even a .500 record down the stretch gets them in, comfortably. In the Metro, they’re still alive. In the Central, they’re in the driver’s seat for a Wild Card. In the Pacific, they’re taking bids for a vendor to stitch a division title banner and eyeing home-ice advantage for two rounds. They’re better than most NHL teams. They didn’t make the playoffs. Both are facts.
And what’s a blow-up, really? Should we trade valuable veteran assets like DeBrincat or Larkin? You’re just wasting prime years of Raymond and Seider outside the postseason, then. Trade them, too? Where does it stop? I know we’re all sick of prospect accolades, and rankings don’t promise anything, but should we just dismantle what The Athletic just ranked as the fourth-best prospect base (which has recently graduated Raymond, Seider, Edvinsson, Kasper, Sandin-Pellikka and Finnie)? Just to play the lottery ball game again, check back in a decade and hope we’ve landed the next Macklin Celebrini?
Nah, not for me. That’s nonsense. That’s not a plan. That’s just venting frustration (which we all feel). Give me concrete next steps, I’ll hear it out. It’s not a video game. You can’t just press reset. You might end up in the same spot, you might end up even worse. Much worse. It’s possible to have success in this league without bottoming out. The reigning two-time champs bottomed out from 2010-15 (ish, Florida was basically an afterthought for decades). It didn’t work. They packaged assets in trades. They made themselves a free agent destination. They won a full decade later. Twice. Nearly three years in a row. That’s where the Red Wings are at. Now is the time to get aggressive, because you have the ammo to do so — and because you’ve seen that the group as it stands is not good enough.
2. This inspires urgency. This contradicts my first point in a way, but builds on the same idea. I would rather the Red Wings have started strong and faltered than sputtered from the start and just missed after a hot streak. Tomato, tomato for some of you, I’m sure. But it shows me that this team is capable of hanging with the best (as a finish as the 11th-13th best team in the league should support), but when they needed that killer instinct, they came up short. The “just jerseys” comment from McLellan is sure to get plenty of legs this summer, as many fit that category on a given night.
A late surge to me shows management that maybe you have something, a fall like the team had shows that some surgery is needed. With how free agency has evolved with a rising cap, they cannot fix issues by just adding a few new bodies here and there. They need to get creative, and aggressive, to add some new players to the mix who might provide a spark at this time of year when the team seems to generally falter. If it inspires a dramatic bottom-six shakeup or a trade for a top-six staple, I think it’s for the best long-term, even if the short-term pain is tough to handle.
3. I have more takes, but I’ll cap it at 3 for now, as this is getting quite long for a game day post. Maybe I’ll throw some more toxic positivity into a post for Wednesday’s season finale. I certainly don’t blame any readers who clocked out after Saturday’s game and won’t check back in until the draft or free agency. I also don’t blame anyone who’s had enough of hearing about prospects.
But if you asked me if I’d rather have the Hobey Baker and Mike Richter winners or not… I’d choose to have them.
This weekend, Red Wings prospects captured both honors, with Max Plante winning the Hobey Baker as the best player in college hockey after racking up 52 points in 40 games with the University of Minnesota-Duluth. This honor tends to favor older players, but the 20-year-old Plante beat out Michigan captain T.J. Hughes (just signed by Colorado at 24 going on 25 early next season) and Denver defenseman Eric Pohlkamp (a 22-year-old undersized defenseman in San Jose’s system).
Plante has decided to stay at UMD for his junior season for family reasons; he already played on a line with older brother Zam, but younger brother Victor is an incoming freshman and likely late-first/early-second round pick in the upcoming draft as one of the top players on USA Hockey’s NTDP U18 Team.
The most interesting thing that’s come of Plante’s press as Detroit’s first-ever prospect to win the Hobey is that he had two heart surgeries last summer to address a condition he didn’t know he’s been dealing with since birth. One article I read explained that he always felt a step behind his peers in training because he’d lose his wind easy, and just figured it meant he was out of shape. Even just looking at his face from his draft year to now, he looks like a completely different person. You always hope your draft picks take their training seriously, but the idea that he was already doing so and was hindered by some correctable genetic condition is pretty interesting, given that he was already considered a top player in his class with whatever limitations he had.
This is the most interesting prospect in Detroit’s system to me — any high second-round pick should be, but Plante is a guy who might really benefit from a surgery-free summer of training into a massive junior season (and potential Hobey repeat) that could see him jump right into the Red Wings lineup next March.
Capping that off, Trey Augustine won the Richter as the best goalie in college hockey. This is less surprising based on preseason expectations, as Augustine is a serial winner going back to his NTDP days. He is slightly undersized but turned pro immediately and made his Griffins debut over the weekend. He lost (I didn’t watch the game but those who did sounded impressed by his debut), but Grand Rapids has quite a choice ahead of what will hopefully be a deep playoff run.
Detroit’s goaltending pipeline has never looked like this. It’s fair to say Talbot’s career is at or near an end, but Gibson looks like a strong option for the next few years. Sebastian Cossa is out of waiver options next season, and while he’s been rocky of late, he’s had several excellent seasons with the Griffins and seems ready to handle an NHL test next fall. If he isn’t, free agent signee Michal Postava has looked like an excellent find, and Augustine seems like he will be right on the heels of those two. Down the road, Rudy Guimond has had two straight years of being one of the best QMJHL goalies and Michal Pradal has been a top USHL netminder since coming to North America.
Not every prospect works out. I still prefer when our guys are making headlines. These days are dark, but I think the future is bright. Let’s finish the year on a high note.
How to Watch
Time: 7:00 p.m. EDT
TV: FanDuel Sports Network
Radio: 97.1 The Ticket
Lineup notes: Michael Brandsegg-Nygard has been recalled, and it’s a fitting reward for being far-and-away Detroit’s best forward prospect in GR the past few months. No word yet on where he’ll play, so I’ll guess the third line and hope it’s even higher.
Red Wings Projected Lineup
Finnie – Larkin – Raymond
DeBrincat – Copp – Kane
Perron – Compher – Brandsegg-Nygard
van Riemsdyk – Kasper – Shine/Mazur
Edvinsson – Seider
Chiarot – Faulk
Johansson – JBD/ASP
Gibson
Talbot
Lightning Projected Lineup
Hagel – Cirelli – Kucherov
Guentzel – Point – Goncalves
Paul – Gourde – Bjorkstrand
Perry – Geekie – Sabourin
Moser – Carlile
McDonagh – Cernak
D’Astous – Lilleberg
Vasilevskiy
Johansson
