Detroit Red Wings 2024-25 season preview: Playoff chances, projected points, roster rankings

By Dom Luszczyszyn, Sean Gentille and Shayna Goldman

Since the end of the 2020 season, after their rebuild truly bottomed out, the Red Wings' climb back to respectability has been equal parts slow and steady.

Incremental gains. Some individual improvements. More points each and every year, culminating in April when they missed the playoffs by one agonizing point. Overall, it hasn't quite been enough to get them back to the postseason — a drought that's now at eight years — but the compass ultimately always pointed in the right direction.

This season, though, will be the biggest test yet for Steve Yzerman's creation. Are they good, or are they just ... not bad?

The projection

We admit, this does feel low for the Red Wings . Detroit had a respectable 91 points last season and looks poised to finally take the next step — but the model isn't quite convinced this team is legit. At least not as currently constructed.

At 80.9 points, the team's forecast is actually below where they were to start last season (85 points) which may surprise some. That's a byproduct of uninspiring underlying numbers last season (weaker overall than the year prior when Detroit earned just 80 points) and a tepid offseason that saw the team arguably get worse.

Perhaps the core can take a massive leap or a prospect will surprise, but the Red Wings still have a lot of holes that have been filled rather poorly via free agency — especially on defense. With the rest of the East looking a lot better, this may be a season primed for disappointment.

The big question

How big of a step can Lucas Raymond and Moritz Seider take in Year 4?

The blueprint of all true teardowns is the same — preach patience, lose as many games as possible, hope all that suffering affords you the opportunity to draft a franchise-altering player, then repeat as necessary. In the back half of the 2010s, the Red Wings certainly had Parts I and II covered. The lottery, though, famously never quite went their way, coming to a head in 2019 (fourth-worst record, No. 6 pick) and 2020 (worst record, No. 4 pick).

The hope back then was that the players they drafted in those spots, while unlikely to be immediate game-changers, would develop into down-the-line cornerstones. In the meantime, Detroit's plan would have to shift. You can only be so bad for so long, especially with a few solid players like Dylan Larkin in the mix. Now, nearly midway through the 2020s, the prospects who started out as consolation prizes have indeed become foundational pieces. The question regarding Raymond and Seider: just how ideal of a situation that is for the future of the Red Wings.

Both are undeniably important. Both are already good NHL players. If this is going to work out for Detroit, though, "good" probably won't be good enough. The bright side for Detroit is both seem to be capable of more.

We'll start with Raymond, the first of the two to sign a long-term extension ahead of this season and the better player in 2023-24. In his third season, at 21 years old, he took a step forward in terms of point production, play driving and all-around effectiveness. Part of that was due to his linemates — Larkin and Alex DeBrincat — but Raymond deserves plenty of credit as well. By the end of the season, he was Detroit's leading goal-scorer and finished with a flourish (7G, 5A in his final 11 games) that nearly helped push Detroit into the postseason. His skating and puck skills have always been obvious, even when the results didn't match, and now he's got a 72-point season (and $64.6 million contract) to show for it.

It's fair to ask, then, why his projected Net Rating for 2024-25 is lower than where he finished last season. Improving, but still-iffy, five-on-five impacts and a short track record, mainly. Uptick in production aside, Detroit was still outscored and out-chanced with him on the ice last season, and goaltending wasn't entirely to blame.

Still, Raymond's production, age and chemistry with Larkin and DeBrincat count for plenty, as do his improved impacts on shot and chance generation. His placement in Player Tiers reflects a degree of optimism, too; he's in 4C for 2024-25, the tail end of the Star Tier, with the sense he hasn't reached his ceiling. His next step hinges on driving more play on his own and relying on Larkin a little less. If he combines that extra substance with another bump in production, a spot in Tier 3C for next season — with the Matt Boldys and Mat Barzals of the world — is within reach. Wheeler's Prospect Tiers suggest he has Tier 3B upside.

As for Seider, if you said his career was at something of a crossroads, you wouldn't be incorrect. His third season, based on Net Rating, was his worst by a significant margin. Year over year, he's gone from plus-9.8 to plus-4.3 to plus-0.6.

Now, it's necessary — mandatory, really — to say Seider faced the toughest usage in the league between competition, teammates and zone starts. The fact he kept it together to any real degree? Tip your cap. Very few defenseman could thrive under those circumstances. Seider, even after accounting for that degree of difficulty, only narrowly kept his head above water, and the player we saw in Year 1 seemed to be capable of bigger, better things than simple survival. Tracked data from Corey Sznajder pointed to a player struggling to get the puck out cleanly with a well-below-average controlled exit rate of 28 percent. Seider was closer to 60 percent in his first two seasons.

At some point soon, he's going to have to dominate his minutes — even if they're easier. Otherwise, it'll be tough to view him as much more than a No. 1 defenseman on a mediocre team. That's not what the Red Wings thought they were getting. It's not how the majority of the league seems to view him, even after last season. The results, though, will speak for themselves, as they so often do.

The wild card

Can Simon Edvinsson provide immediate top pair impact?

Edvinsson only has 25 games of NHL experience, so there is an element of uncertainty around the up-and-coming defenseman. But his development over the years built to this point, and now he looks ready for a mainstay role. That progress landed him 29th on Scott Wheeler's drafted prospects rankings after he worked on areas of weakness in Grand Rapids and impressed down the stretch in Detroit.

Edvinsson was thrown into play during the most important run of the Red Wings' season. He helped keep their season alive with game-changing offensive plays and was a bright spot below the surface. At five-on-five, Detroit saw a swing in their expected goal generation with Edvinsson on the ice and were more stout in their own zone. A sixteen-game sample can only tell so much, but it's an encouraging start.

Player development can be a rocky process, especially in a top-pair capacity. But if he can follow Seider's footsteps in his first official year at the NHL level, the Red Wings will be in luck. Seider earned a plus-9.8 Net Rating, even after accounting for his usage, in his rookie season. Brock Faber in Minnesota last year showed the immediate impact a rookie can have in meaningful minutes, too. As a former sixth overall pick, the pedigree is there to be an impact player. But with the hope and optimism Edvinsson has earned, there always has to be an element of patience considering the situation he will be entering in Detroit.

The strengths

The Red Wings are Larkin's team and over the last three seasons, he's settled into a comfortable range scoring at a point-per-game pace. That's an impressive feat on this team in particular, where Larkin is the engine that makes it go — usually without much help around him. That's starting to change with more winger depth and some players on the rise. The question now is how high Larkin can go with that added support.

Larkin is Detroit's main needle-mover. He's the one creating the most chances in-zone, bringing the puck up ice and bringing the puck out. That stuff carries more weight playing with other players that can help turn that work into tangible results. It came to fruition last season with Detroit outscoring opponents 55-50 with Larkin on the ice — the first time since Larkin's rookie season he's won his minutes.

Doing that consistently is what will help bring Larkin up a level, especially if he has the expected goal numbers to back it up. Larkin is heavily involved all over the ice and it shows with a plus-12 Net Rating — right in line with an average top-line center.

Getting to franchise center status, though, requires Larkin finding another gear on top of that — a tall task for a 28-year-old. The Red Wings have the most important position checked off, just not as emphatically as an actual top team. Larkin's likely limited ceiling ultimately limits the team's ceiling. As good as Larkin is, any aspirations of Detroit becoming an annual contender require Larkin to be able to match what other contenders can offer. Right now, he doesn't, and there doesn't seem to be an heir apparent to push him down the lineup, either.

That's not set in stone, though, and Raymond's rise may be a big contributing factor toward how high Larkin can go. While we can account for Larkin's previous lack of high-end linemate quality and estimate his value based on situational difficulty, it's possible it's not enough. Most franchise centers have a go-to wingman and having Raymond rise to that level may be exactly what both players need to achieve contender cornerstone status.

Raymond took a major step last season, and while he doesn't technically qualify as a "strength" when compared to other elite wingers, he's getting there. He had a plus-7.6 Net Rating last season, a big leap from his sophomore season where he slumped to minus-2.4 (which is partly why the model remains conservative on Raymond's projected impact). Much of that came down the stretch where he locked in scoring 21 points in his final 18 games, with his average Game Score jumping from 0.64 to 1.13. Getting up to Larkin's level of value is the next step in Raymond's trajectory and would go a long way for Detroit's chances to make the playoffs and beyond.

Aside from Raymond, the Red Wings are relatively deep on the wings in the top nine, which should help insulate the hole at center between Larkin and Joe Veleno . DeBrincat is still a strong scorer who put up 67 points last year. Patrick Kane looked closer to his vintage self with his production, chance creation and transition game — and wasn't a liability on defense, either. Vladimir Tarasenko isn't the player he once was, but should at least be an offensive upgrade over David Perron . And then there's the homegrown talent in Michael Rasmussen and Jonatan Berggren , both of whom should bounce back after an uneven 2023-24 season.

It's not a lineup of world-beaters by any means, but the winger room does look passable and should be Detroit's greatest positional strength.

The Red Wings also have what should be an excellent third pair between the underrated Erik Gustafsson and Olli Määttä . That duo should be able to crush sheltered minutes and earn some value back from what will be Detroit's biggest issue this season: all the other defensemen.

The weaknesses

When it comes to the Red Wings' playoff hopes, the biggest issue is the team's top four, which enters the season with a combined minus-10 Net Rating. The league average is plus-nine and the average among projected playoff teams is plus-14. That deficit is almost the exact difference between Detroit being a near 50-50 playoff bet and where the Red Wings land instead.

It starts with Seider, Detroit's only notably above-average defender who currently grades out as a decent No. 2. The burden Seider faces in his role is extreme, but even with that in mind, his results haven't screamed franchise defenseman since his rookie season. Or elite defenseman. Or even No. 1 defenseman.

This season the burden stands to grow based on the talent around him, with Jake Walman out of the picture. Walman wasn't ideally slotted on the top pair, but he was at the very least a better option than Ben Chiarot or Määttä. Putting Chiarot next to Seider feels like taking the tires off a Mustang and hoping it still drives. Few players have been a consistently bigger drag on results over the last few seasons than Chiarot, which is no surprise given he can't defend his blue line, can't retrieve pucks well and can't get pucks out.

A lot of Detroit's forecast hinges on just how good Seider can be. The tools are obviously there for him to be very good, he just hasn't put it all together yet — with his environment being a major factor in that. If Seider gets there this season, it would go a long way toward pushing Detroit toward the playoffs — it just doesn't seem to be the likeliest path based on what he's shown recently.

Edvinsson has the potential to change all that, especially if he has a season as impactful as Seider's rookie year. At the very least Edvinsson enters the season with top-four upside. That's a major step up from what's around him, and he may be the team's second best defender on Day 1. The Red Wings will need even more from him to get to where they need to go.

Another big concern for Detroit is its expensive middle-six center combo of J.T. Compher and Andrew Copp , both of whom are over-slotted. While both scored at a decent enough clip at five-on-five, they also had inflated on-ice shooting percentages of 11.2 percent which led the team. That's ripe for regression which doesn't bode well given the rest of their game is lacking.

Having a capable second-line center to play behind Larkin would certainly make this forward lineup look a lot more imposing. For now, Detroit has struck out with two stopgap solutions that move the needle in the wrong direction relative to their role.

Defense and center are arguably the two most important positions and in both cases Detroit looks outmatched compared to other playoff teams. That might work fine with strong goaltending able to paper over their issues, but it's unlikely lightning strikes twice there given the team's personnel.

Of particular concern is what Detroit's goalies were able to conjure last season shorthanded, saving the second most goals above expected. That allowed a team that gave up the second most chances to finish with an average penalty kill, something that will be difficult to replicate given the defensemen and goaltending available.

While the Red Wings have three NHL-caliber goalies at their disposal, it's difficult to figure any of them will be capable of being dependable everyday starters. Cam Talbot isn't necessarily a bad bet after a renaissance season with the Kings , but it looks more like a late career flash-in-the-pan rather than a full-blown resurgence. His previous trajectory points to a below-average goalie and age-related decline is also a concern contributing to his current valuation. Going from the Kings' staunch defense to this team will make for a huge environmental shift that may overwhelm Talbot, too. He doesn't look like that much of an upgrade over Alex Lyon .

Maybe everything works out for the Red Wings where their core takes a leap towards stardom, the defensive depth holds strong and the goaltending is steady. But as has been the case for the last few years, it's another season with a lot of question marks where a lot has to go right to make it work. The odds aren't in their favor.

The best case

Raymond and Seider join Larkin as elite difference-makers, Edvinsson is the real deal, the vets stay steady, the goaltending surprises and the Red Wings charge straight into the playoffs. With ease.

The worst case

This forecast turns out exactly right and the Red Wings spent the last decade or so building an also-ran.

The bottom line

After one of the lengthiest runs of success in modern North American sports, Red Wings fans have now gone eight years without a playoff series. While the current roster has its bright spots, both for the present and future, there's even more to suggest the wait will continue.

How the model works

How the model adjusts for context

Understanding projection uncertainty

Evolving Hockey

Natural Stat Trick

Hockey Reference

All Three Zones Tracking by Corey Sznajder

Read the other 2024-25 season previews here .

(Photo of Simon Edvinsson: Dave Reginek / NHLI via )