NHL: Detroit Red Wings – 2025/2026 Review
Detroit endured a brutal end to the season. For almost two-thirds of the campaign, the team looked on course for the playoffs, before collapsing over the final six weeks and missing out for a 10th straight year. The Wings still finished with 92 points, their best total since 2015-16, the last time the club reached the postseason.
Key data
2025-2026 record: 41-31-10 (241 goals for, 258 against)
2025-2026 NHL standing: 6th in the Atlantic Division
Top scorer 2025-2026: Alex DeBrincat (41)
Top assister 2025-2026: Lucas Raymond (51)
Top point scorer 2025-2026: Alex DeBrincat (85)
Average age of roster (2026-2027): 27.8 years
Available cap space (2026-2027): 19.57 M$
Recent moves (off-season)
Arrivals:
- Viktor Arvidsson (F)
- Daniil Tarasov (G)
- Keegan Kolesar (F)
Departures:
- Sebastian Cossa (G)
- Patrick Kane (F)
Franchise outlook
Detroit – Contracts and future draft picks
The contract picture gives Detroit a false sense of stability. Yes, Dylan Larkin, Moritz Seider and Lucas Raymond are all locked in long term, but the captain himself asked to leave the organisation this summer, a massive jolt for a club coming off its best season in a decade. The standoff rolls on: Larkin has a full no-trade clause and will only approve four destinations, while Detroit will not move him unless it gets a ready-made top-line centre in return.
Behind the scenes, Steve Yzerman is out as general manager after the storm, leaving the organisation without steady leadership at exactly the moment it has to decide what to do with Alex DeBrincat and Justin Faulk, both one year from full free agency. The draft capital is still healthy, with a first-round pick every year through 2029, but that will not hide the uncertainty hanging over a core that was supposed to be locked in for years.
The comeback that taught a lesson
Few organisations have managed to turn promise into chaos as quickly as Detroit. After coming within touching distance of the playoffs for the first time in a decade, powered by the best season of Alex DeBrincat’s career (41 goals, the most by a Wing since Marian Hossa in 2009), the club watched its captain ask out, its general manager walk away and its future turn murkier by the month. The Larkin saga says it all: the captain has a full no-trade clause and has approved only four destinations, while Detroit will not settle for a return unless it includes a top-six centre who can step in now.
So there is no deal on the table heading into camp. Meanwhile, DeBrincat and Justin Faulk are both in the final year of their contracts, which means the new leadership has to decide quickly whether to pay up for its top scorer or start a proper reset. This is no longer about talent. Detroit has enough of that to compete. It is about whether the organisation can hold itself together.
Until the Larkin situation is sorted and a new general manager is in place to set a direction, it is hard to see this team building on its best season since 2015-16. The talent is there. The question is whether the structure around it can still handle the heat.
Player to watch: Alex DeBrincat (F)
DeBrincat enters the final year of his deal after a career season (41 goals, 85 points), and his future has become one of the summer’s real talking points in Detroit. Unlike Larkin, he has made it clear he wants to stay, saying he sees Detroit as home.
But the call is not entirely his. The new regime must decide whether to hand him a major extension, possibly around 12 M$ per season over several years, or look at a trade if the team is out of the race by the deadline. His production on the ice is not in question. What is uncertain is whether the organisation around him can settle down fast enough to justify that kind of money.
2026-2027 target
Projected Detroit Red Wings lines 2026-2027
Detroit’s sporting goal is obvious: end a 10-year playoff drought, especially after the core proved last season that it could hang around for nearly two-thirds of the schedule. It will not be easy in an Atlantic Division that remains one of the toughest in the league, with several clubs already established as playoff contenders.
But this time, the real test will not be on the ice alone. The new leadership must steady the organisation quickly, whether that means sorting out Larkin one way or another, or locking in DeBrincat’s future, to avoid a dressing-room distraction wrecking another promising season.
If Detroit repeats last year’s mistake, a strong first two-thirds followed by a collapse, the question will no longer be whether the talent is there. It will be whether this organisation can handle the pressure when it matters.
My prediction
I have Detroit second-bottom in the division. The race is still loaded, and the situation remains a bit murky. Between Larkin wanting out and the ongoing debate over whether to extend DeBrincat, or not.
Photo credit: wallpapersafari.com | zacharyc
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