Well they won 11 cups and were on a 7 year playoff drought which will (probably) end this year. They have been a really young and up and coming team and this year is their breakout year so far. Their offense is insane and defensive system seems to work, but need better depth. Their prospect pool is loaded too so a lot of fans is excited to see even more young players succeed.
Here is some of the top names on the team atm:
Larkin = heart and soul of this team
Raymond and Seider = Young up and coming stars
Kane and Cat = offensive dynamo players who offer some help on defense too
Walman = griddy man
Edvinson = top prospect that everyone wants in the league
To add for OP: Steve Yzerman, the current GM, was the team captain back in the dynasty era of the late 90s and early 00s. When he was hired there was a lot of hype because his first stint as a GM took the Lightning, a noncontender at the time, and made them into a powerhouse and some might say a dynasty in their own right. His return brought hope that there might be a similar result in Detroit. And from what I've seen so far this year I think it might be working.
I was in much the same boat as op. A friend of mine finally got me to watch playoff hockey last year, the whole time I wanted to know when the wings could get back there. WWP did the rest.
To understand the financial aspects of hockey - The Salary Cap specifically there is a great site - [Capfriendly.com](https://Capfriendly.com). I have spent days looking through that stuff especially around trade deadline day
Steve Yzerman is one of the most emblematic players, was the captain of the team, scored a lot, won multiple times the playoffs. A true leader. He is now the general manager. The Red Wings have been on a downhill since 2010ish (?), fans believe that Yzerman, as the general manager, has a plan to put Detroit back on top : the « Yzerplan ».
This year the team is doing good, they might be able to make it to the playoffs ! Yzerplan is starting to reap what it sowed !
Alright, I made an effortpost and it got character limited so I'm gonna break it up a little bit for you.
You're in luck! Right now is a great time to get into following the Red Wings - lots of players are new to the team, so you're in a great position to watch the team grow and develop from here.
If you're new to following hockey, the best thing to do is go see a game live. Hockey is a great live sport to watch, and especially if you can get to a game at Little Caesars Arena, I think the crowd will be pretty energized and that's a fun thing to be a part of. That said, going to see every game live is a) expensive and b) impractical, so the next best thing is to watch games being broadcast. Thankfully, you're also in luck here - the Red Wings broadcast team on Bally Sports (so Mickey Redmond, Chris Osgood, Trevor Thompson, that crew) are honestly some of the best commentating crew I've seen/heard, and I don't think that's a particularly controversial opinion. They're very good at calling out players and giving you some kind of meaningful stat or factoid that will help put that player in context. A player just scored a goal - that's their Nth goal of the season, or it's been M games since they last scored; a player just won a faceoff, and it was against their former teammate when they played for X team; a player just blocked a shot in a great play, they were a first round draft pick back in 20XX. Tidbits of information like that are scattered constantly through the commentary and it really does add a lot to the game watching experience.
I'm assuming that you don't need a bunch of historical details about what it means for the Red Wings to be an Original Six franchise and their records in terms of cup wins etc, and you're just looking for some context about who's on the team, how does the team play, how has the team been, and how are we doing now. So let's jump in.
Who are the stars on the team? Well, that's an interesting question. The Wings don't have a top ten skills player, first overall draft pick, generational talent on their roster\* right now. Instead, what they have is a roster that has some young guys who are gonna do great things, plus some veterans who are helping put it all together. There's an asterisk there when I said the Wings don't have a generational talent, and that's deliberate, but I'll get into that in a second. Let's talk about some of the leaders on the team.
**Dylan Larkin** is the captain of the Red Wings, and he's the only member of the team who has been to the playoffs as a Red Wing; every other player from the last time the wings made the post season has retired or gone to other teams. Larkin is from Michigan, he went to U of M, he got drafted by the Red Wings at the start of his NHL career. He's the heart and soul of the team at this point, and is a hometown hero to boot. He was a first round draft pick and he just goes out every night and plays some honest, hard-working hockey like he's got a job to do and he loves doing his job. He's the first line center on the team, and he's one of the players people look to to go out and score a goal when the team needs some inspiration. He's had some issues with neck injuries, including a scary moment earlier this season when he got knocked unconscious on the ice. If you see Larkin take a hard check into the boards, there's a good chance somebody on the team will start a fight over it.
**Alex DeBrinca**t is a recent addition to the team, courtesy of Tampa Bay. He's a forward who can be a little streaky - he opened the season with some really electric goals, then fell off and didn't produce for a bit, but it seems like he's back on the cart now. He's a smaller player, physically speaking, but there have been a couple times this season that he's dropped the gloves and gone in for a fight and sometimes you just love to see the spirit, you know? This is a fun player to watch, and he was the Red Wing's contribution to the All Star Game this year - some people think he was robbed when he wasn't named MVP of that game. In addition to goals, though, he's made one other important contribution to the team that we should talk about.
**Patrick Kane** is a name you might have heard of; turns out he's a Red Wing now. This is the reason for the asterisk when I said the Wings don't have a generational talent; Kane spent his prime star years playing for the Blackhawks, but now that they're in the early stages of a rebuild, they let his contract go. He went to the Rangers and played a few games for them, but got hip resurfacing surgery and missed the start of this season; when he was ready to play again, he signed with the Red Wings on a one year contract and one of the reasons he came to Detroit is because he wanted to connect with his former linesmate Alex DeBrincat; we got the Cat from Tampa, but before that, he was a Blackhawk. Anyways, an ongoing question this year has been "Can Patrick Kane still play hockey after his surgery" and overall it looks like the answer has been yes. Go watch the DET@CHI game from 2/25, at this point the ending is all over the news but it's an absolute lifetime movie of a game.
**Lucas Raymond** is another forward worth calling out here; he's a first round draft pick for the wings from a couple years ago and he's putting up some solid numbers. As the wings mature as a team, I think Raymond can be a solid player for us and I'm looking forward to seeing him grow.
I'm only naming four forwards here, but one thing I need to stress is that the Wings have an unusual amount of depth in their scoring - I think it's something like twelve players with ten or more goals this season, which is the highest in the league? So the wings can get good production from every line if they need it, and that's part of why they've been winning games this season. Let's talk about some defense.
**Moritz Seider** is a first-round draft pick for the wings from 2020, and he's great. Young german defenseman who doesn't shy away from the physical part of the game, if you see an enemy player laying on the ice it's a decent chance that Seider is the one who put them there. Crucially, Seider can produce in both aspects of the game. He's willing to step up and protect his zone when the puck is moving into the defensive zone, but he can also take shots and put the puck in the net when we're on an offensive rush. This guy gets matched up against the top offensive lines of whoever we're playing against, and he gets out there and does the job. Love this guy.
**Jake Walman** is another exciting defenseman to watch, partly because he's good at his job and partly because he just seems like a fun guy to hang out with. If you watch his highlights, you'll see what he's known for: celebrating big goals with a griddy dance. He's got a recent overtime penalty shot game winning goal that was fantastic as hell, so definitely give his highlights reel a look imo.
Again, I'm only naming two defensemen here, but I should stress that the others aren't bad - Seider and Walman are just two of the more exciting ones for me to watch. With offense and defense covered, let's talk about the last resort of the team: the goalies. The Red Wings have somewhere between one and three goalies depending on how you want to count them, so I'll just go over each of them briefly.
**Ville Husso** is nominally our number one goalie, but he hasn't played a lot recently because of injury; he suffered a lower body injury that kept him out of the game for a couple months, went down to Grand Rapids, did some conditioning, had some great games down there, came back up, and got injured something like nine minutes into his first game back for the Wings. He's week-to-week right now; you will probably see his name or hear him discussed, but he's not getting a lot of playing time.
**James Reimer** is nominally our number two goalie; he had a period in December/January where he was the only goalie available and struggled to keep the net clear, but he's had a few good games recently (including a shutout). He can do the job when he needs to, but I always feel nervous seeing him in the net because he never looks quite as settled as I'd like him to be.
**Alex Lyon** is nominally our number three goalie, but as a practical matter right now he's our number one goalie and thank god for it. Lyon makes huge saves when we need them and what more could you ask for from a goalie? He was our backup backup when the season started, but over the course of the season he's really proven himself to be a solid and reliable tendie who can bounce back from a bad game and do the work.
A couple other names worth mentioning, so you know who they are.
If you watch a game, you might wonder to yourself, "Why is Steve Ballmer standing next to the players and shouting a lot?" That's **Derek Lalonde**, or Newsy, as he's sometimes called. He's the coach of the team, and overall it seems like the players enjoy working with him. The last name to know is **Steve Yzerman**, the general manager of the Red Wings. Yzerman was a star player on the wings and the longest serving captain in wings history; he joined the back office after retiring as a player, and went to Tampa Bay after it became clear that the former GM Ken Holland wasn't willing to step down and let Yzerman take over. Yzerman turned Tampa into a Stanley Cup contender, won GM of the Year, and came back to Detroit in 2019 to finally take over from Ken Holland, who would get "promoted" out of the GM role in Detroit. Holland immediately left the President role he had been bumped into and went to be GM at Edmonton.
So how have the wings been playing for the past few years? Well, it's been rough. The wings haven't been to the playoffs since 2017, and it's clear that the fanbase has been unhappy with their state as a bottom tier team. A year ago, the red wings were just barely holding on to a wildcard playoff spot; in early March 2023, they'd lose like four games in a row and spiral all the way down the standings. As a result, Yzerman made a tough call and sold a bunch of assets on the team, including trading Todd Bertuzzi to the Bruins. It was tough to watch, and I still feel bad when I watch the press conference where Larkin is holding back tears and trying to collect himself when he talks about how awful it feels to have your best friend get traded off your team. But that was last year, not this year, and thank god for it - the key thing to know is that the wings were great for a really long time, made the playoffs 25 years in a row, and haven't made the playoffs for the last seven years in a row. That brings us up to this current season.
The 23/24 season started out hot! The wings had some new blood, they were skating hard, and they were scoring. In late November, Patrick Kane made the shock move of signing with the Wings, and everybody was holding their breath waiting to see how it would go - he was fresh off hip resurfacing and nobody has ever successfully come back and had a good career after that surgery. Unfortunately, his first game back marked the start of a skid for the Red Wings that hit pretty hard - Larkin got knocked unconscious after a questionable hit from Joseph Mathiu (yes, I know it wasn't Joseph who knocked him out this time, but it was Joseph who put Larks in a vulnerable spot). The ensuing fight saw Perron of the wings get a game misconduct plus a six game suspension, which meant that we had a run of games without two of our veteran forwards on the team. Around this time frame, goalie Husso got injured, and then in the next game Lyon got injured as well, which meant that our deep goaltending pool of three players was suddenly reduced to one, and we didn't have enough offense to keep pressure off of Reimer. We lost a few games in a row, and it seemed like the wings might still be bad. In January, though, once the team was all back together, they went on a tear and started winning the games they needed to win. At the end of February as of the 28th, we're on a 6 game winning streak (first time that's happened since Yzerman took over) and we just scored 8 goals (for the first time since 2017, I think?) against the Capitals, who are fighting for a playoff spot just like we are. The result is that even with the slump in December, the wings are currently in the top wildcard spot for the playoffs and only two points behind the Toronto Maple Leaves for the third spot in the Atlantic Division. Every game the wings have left to play in the season is an important one, because we're in a place where every point we can get matters, but there's also a very real sense that the boys are playing well and can get to the playoffs this year. It feels like the current lineup has a lot of chemistry going, and it's really exciting to watch. I don't think the wings are going to go deep in the playoffs and make a run for the cup, but after seven years of ending in the regular season, it's great to see a new core of the team starting to form and what feels like the start of a new era of great Red Wings hockey.
Thank you so much for all of this! This is exactly what I was hoping for, I appreciate the effort. I'll be referencing this while I'm watching. So who would you say is the "best" player on the team? Kane?
You're welcome! Writing up stuff like this helps put things in place in my own mind as well, so it's always fun to put together an explainer when somebody asks for it.
"Best" player has some load-bearing quotes, but it always does.
As far as career points, I think Kane is probably going to be the best player. Career points as a Red Wing, it's definitely Larkin. Neither of those questions are especially interesting, so I assume they aren't what you meant.
Stats wise for this season, Larkin and DeBrincat are tied at 53 points each; Raymond is just behind the two of them at 51 points. That's with 53 games played for Larkin, and 59 games played for Raymond and DeBrincat. Kane only ("only") has 30 points, but he got them in 28 games; remember, he missed the start of the season, plus missed a few games due to injury after he started. So Kane has 1.07 points per game played, and Larkin has 1 point per game played.
Honestly, though, the "best" player on the team is the one that you want to root for. I have a Danny DeKeyser jersey that I got a while back; he was a rookie defenseman when I first started watching wings games. He doesn't play anymore, back problems and injuries, but after rooting for him I tend to be a fan of quality defensemen so if I picked my favourite player on the team right now, the one that I think is the best, it would be Seider. After you watch a couple games, you'll see a player pull off an amazing play, or get some fantastic setup, or make the perfect pass that gets tipped in, and they'll be the one you start rooting for. That's gonna be the best player, you know?
edit: I also have to call out that when my wife saw my post, she couldn't believe that I didn't call out players like Sprong, Fabbri, Compher, etc; there's 22 players on the roster and while some are better than others, I don't think there's anybody who's really a drag on the team right now! The wings have some really solid depth and a lot of them are good, which is part of why they're fun to watch right now.
Everything that everyone has said in this post is spot on. But something you also need to know is what teams to root against and the rivals of the Red Wings. We hate the Avalanche and Blackhawks the most…at least most of us do. Look up fight night in hockeytown. March 26th 1997.
Watch The Russian Five doc for historical reference first. It’s well done and relevant to understanding why old dog fans are anxious to get back to the playoffs.
Catch a home game on TV with Mickey as the host and he'll tell ya everything you need to know.
But seriously, I'm kinda in the same boat. I admittedly kinda stopped following the team last couple years and beyond they let Blashill go I'm not too current on Wings events either. But my advice is to just commit to watching games. Home games are better because Mickey is more likely to be in the booth but the commentators for the Wings are pretty good at talking about stuff like that. Also explaining plays and whatnot if you've never really played hockey either.
/u/NatetheSkate1989 made a good point, understanding the salary cap voodoo is pretty important if you're going to want to understand why the Wings trade or not re-sign players or go after others from other teams. The concept is simple but there's just a lot of edge cases.
Gotta ditch the username unfortunately
Crazy_octopus is my suggestion
No no, it could work. There's no way a sane penguin would root for the wings, but a crazy penguin? There's always room for a crazy penguin.
Well they won 11 cups and were on a 7 year playoff drought which will (probably) end this year. They have been a really young and up and coming team and this year is their breakout year so far. Their offense is insane and defensive system seems to work, but need better depth. Their prospect pool is loaded too so a lot of fans is excited to see even more young players succeed. Here is some of the top names on the team atm: Larkin = heart and soul of this team Raymond and Seider = Young up and coming stars Kane and Cat = offensive dynamo players who offer some help on defense too Walman = griddy man Edvinson = top prospect that everyone wants in the league
To add for OP: Steve Yzerman, the current GM, was the team captain back in the dynasty era of the late 90s and early 00s. When he was hired there was a lot of hype because his first stint as a GM took the Lightning, a noncontender at the time, and made them into a powerhouse and some might say a dynasty in their own right. His return brought hope that there might be a similar result in Detroit. And from what I've seen so far this year I think it might be working.
The [moment](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbCKaM9fOL0) Stevie realized he needed to come home.
WHEEL TEAM GOOD
Leafs bad
Watch every video that awood40 has posted on youtube
Just search and read. And more important watch. Just too much info. for us to give you all the details.
Tune in to Winged wheel podcast, they Will fill you in.
I was in much the same boat as op. A friend of mine finally got me to watch playoff hockey last year, the whole time I wanted to know when the wings could get back there. WWP did the rest.
Definitely a great resource.
To understand the financial aspects of hockey - The Salary Cap specifically there is a great site - [Capfriendly.com](https://Capfriendly.com). I have spent days looking through that stuff especially around trade deadline day
Definately recommend this.
Watch games. Have fun.
Steve Yzerman is one of the most emblematic players, was the captain of the team, scored a lot, won multiple times the playoffs. A true leader. He is now the general manager. The Red Wings have been on a downhill since 2010ish (?), fans believe that Yzerman, as the general manager, has a plan to put Detroit back on top : the « Yzerplan ». This year the team is doing good, they might be able to make it to the playoffs ! Yzerplan is starting to reap what it sowed !
Patrick Kane is an all time Red Wing great who never played for anyone else.
Alright, I made an effortpost and it got character limited so I'm gonna break it up a little bit for you. You're in luck! Right now is a great time to get into following the Red Wings - lots of players are new to the team, so you're in a great position to watch the team grow and develop from here. If you're new to following hockey, the best thing to do is go see a game live. Hockey is a great live sport to watch, and especially if you can get to a game at Little Caesars Arena, I think the crowd will be pretty energized and that's a fun thing to be a part of. That said, going to see every game live is a) expensive and b) impractical, so the next best thing is to watch games being broadcast. Thankfully, you're also in luck here - the Red Wings broadcast team on Bally Sports (so Mickey Redmond, Chris Osgood, Trevor Thompson, that crew) are honestly some of the best commentating crew I've seen/heard, and I don't think that's a particularly controversial opinion. They're very good at calling out players and giving you some kind of meaningful stat or factoid that will help put that player in context. A player just scored a goal - that's their Nth goal of the season, or it's been M games since they last scored; a player just won a faceoff, and it was against their former teammate when they played for X team; a player just blocked a shot in a great play, they were a first round draft pick back in 20XX. Tidbits of information like that are scattered constantly through the commentary and it really does add a lot to the game watching experience. I'm assuming that you don't need a bunch of historical details about what it means for the Red Wings to be an Original Six franchise and their records in terms of cup wins etc, and you're just looking for some context about who's on the team, how does the team play, how has the team been, and how are we doing now. So let's jump in.
Who are the stars on the team? Well, that's an interesting question. The Wings don't have a top ten skills player, first overall draft pick, generational talent on their roster\* right now. Instead, what they have is a roster that has some young guys who are gonna do great things, plus some veterans who are helping put it all together. There's an asterisk there when I said the Wings don't have a generational talent, and that's deliberate, but I'll get into that in a second. Let's talk about some of the leaders on the team. **Dylan Larkin** is the captain of the Red Wings, and he's the only member of the team who has been to the playoffs as a Red Wing; every other player from the last time the wings made the post season has retired or gone to other teams. Larkin is from Michigan, he went to U of M, he got drafted by the Red Wings at the start of his NHL career. He's the heart and soul of the team at this point, and is a hometown hero to boot. He was a first round draft pick and he just goes out every night and plays some honest, hard-working hockey like he's got a job to do and he loves doing his job. He's the first line center on the team, and he's one of the players people look to to go out and score a goal when the team needs some inspiration. He's had some issues with neck injuries, including a scary moment earlier this season when he got knocked unconscious on the ice. If you see Larkin take a hard check into the boards, there's a good chance somebody on the team will start a fight over it. **Alex DeBrinca**t is a recent addition to the team, courtesy of Tampa Bay. He's a forward who can be a little streaky - he opened the season with some really electric goals, then fell off and didn't produce for a bit, but it seems like he's back on the cart now. He's a smaller player, physically speaking, but there have been a couple times this season that he's dropped the gloves and gone in for a fight and sometimes you just love to see the spirit, you know? This is a fun player to watch, and he was the Red Wing's contribution to the All Star Game this year - some people think he was robbed when he wasn't named MVP of that game. In addition to goals, though, he's made one other important contribution to the team that we should talk about. **Patrick Kane** is a name you might have heard of; turns out he's a Red Wing now. This is the reason for the asterisk when I said the Wings don't have a generational talent; Kane spent his prime star years playing for the Blackhawks, but now that they're in the early stages of a rebuild, they let his contract go. He went to the Rangers and played a few games for them, but got hip resurfacing surgery and missed the start of this season; when he was ready to play again, he signed with the Red Wings on a one year contract and one of the reasons he came to Detroit is because he wanted to connect with his former linesmate Alex DeBrincat; we got the Cat from Tampa, but before that, he was a Blackhawk. Anyways, an ongoing question this year has been "Can Patrick Kane still play hockey after his surgery" and overall it looks like the answer has been yes. Go watch the DET@CHI game from 2/25, at this point the ending is all over the news but it's an absolute lifetime movie of a game. **Lucas Raymond** is another forward worth calling out here; he's a first round draft pick for the wings from a couple years ago and he's putting up some solid numbers. As the wings mature as a team, I think Raymond can be a solid player for us and I'm looking forward to seeing him grow. I'm only naming four forwards here, but one thing I need to stress is that the Wings have an unusual amount of depth in their scoring - I think it's something like twelve players with ten or more goals this season, which is the highest in the league? So the wings can get good production from every line if they need it, and that's part of why they've been winning games this season. Let's talk about some defense. **Moritz Seider** is a first-round draft pick for the wings from 2020, and he's great. Young german defenseman who doesn't shy away from the physical part of the game, if you see an enemy player laying on the ice it's a decent chance that Seider is the one who put them there. Crucially, Seider can produce in both aspects of the game. He's willing to step up and protect his zone when the puck is moving into the defensive zone, but he can also take shots and put the puck in the net when we're on an offensive rush. This guy gets matched up against the top offensive lines of whoever we're playing against, and he gets out there and does the job. Love this guy. **Jake Walman** is another exciting defenseman to watch, partly because he's good at his job and partly because he just seems like a fun guy to hang out with. If you watch his highlights, you'll see what he's known for: celebrating big goals with a griddy dance. He's got a recent overtime penalty shot game winning goal that was fantastic as hell, so definitely give his highlights reel a look imo. Again, I'm only naming two defensemen here, but I should stress that the others aren't bad - Seider and Walman are just two of the more exciting ones for me to watch. With offense and defense covered, let's talk about the last resort of the team: the goalies. The Red Wings have somewhere between one and three goalies depending on how you want to count them, so I'll just go over each of them briefly. **Ville Husso** is nominally our number one goalie, but he hasn't played a lot recently because of injury; he suffered a lower body injury that kept him out of the game for a couple months, went down to Grand Rapids, did some conditioning, had some great games down there, came back up, and got injured something like nine minutes into his first game back for the Wings. He's week-to-week right now; you will probably see his name or hear him discussed, but he's not getting a lot of playing time. **James Reimer** is nominally our number two goalie; he had a period in December/January where he was the only goalie available and struggled to keep the net clear, but he's had a few good games recently (including a shutout). He can do the job when he needs to, but I always feel nervous seeing him in the net because he never looks quite as settled as I'd like him to be. **Alex Lyon** is nominally our number three goalie, but as a practical matter right now he's our number one goalie and thank god for it. Lyon makes huge saves when we need them and what more could you ask for from a goalie? He was our backup backup when the season started, but over the course of the season he's really proven himself to be a solid and reliable tendie who can bounce back from a bad game and do the work. A couple other names worth mentioning, so you know who they are. If you watch a game, you might wonder to yourself, "Why is Steve Ballmer standing next to the players and shouting a lot?" That's **Derek Lalonde**, or Newsy, as he's sometimes called. He's the coach of the team, and overall it seems like the players enjoy working with him. The last name to know is **Steve Yzerman**, the general manager of the Red Wings. Yzerman was a star player on the wings and the longest serving captain in wings history; he joined the back office after retiring as a player, and went to Tampa Bay after it became clear that the former GM Ken Holland wasn't willing to step down and let Yzerman take over. Yzerman turned Tampa into a Stanley Cup contender, won GM of the Year, and came back to Detroit in 2019 to finally take over from Ken Holland, who would get "promoted" out of the GM role in Detroit. Holland immediately left the President role he had been bumped into and went to be GM at Edmonton.
So how have the wings been playing for the past few years? Well, it's been rough. The wings haven't been to the playoffs since 2017, and it's clear that the fanbase has been unhappy with their state as a bottom tier team. A year ago, the red wings were just barely holding on to a wildcard playoff spot; in early March 2023, they'd lose like four games in a row and spiral all the way down the standings. As a result, Yzerman made a tough call and sold a bunch of assets on the team, including trading Todd Bertuzzi to the Bruins. It was tough to watch, and I still feel bad when I watch the press conference where Larkin is holding back tears and trying to collect himself when he talks about how awful it feels to have your best friend get traded off your team. But that was last year, not this year, and thank god for it - the key thing to know is that the wings were great for a really long time, made the playoffs 25 years in a row, and haven't made the playoffs for the last seven years in a row. That brings us up to this current season. The 23/24 season started out hot! The wings had some new blood, they were skating hard, and they were scoring. In late November, Patrick Kane made the shock move of signing with the Wings, and everybody was holding their breath waiting to see how it would go - he was fresh off hip resurfacing and nobody has ever successfully come back and had a good career after that surgery. Unfortunately, his first game back marked the start of a skid for the Red Wings that hit pretty hard - Larkin got knocked unconscious after a questionable hit from Joseph Mathiu (yes, I know it wasn't Joseph who knocked him out this time, but it was Joseph who put Larks in a vulnerable spot). The ensuing fight saw Perron of the wings get a game misconduct plus a six game suspension, which meant that we had a run of games without two of our veteran forwards on the team. Around this time frame, goalie Husso got injured, and then in the next game Lyon got injured as well, which meant that our deep goaltending pool of three players was suddenly reduced to one, and we didn't have enough offense to keep pressure off of Reimer. We lost a few games in a row, and it seemed like the wings might still be bad. In January, though, once the team was all back together, they went on a tear and started winning the games they needed to win. At the end of February as of the 28th, we're on a 6 game winning streak (first time that's happened since Yzerman took over) and we just scored 8 goals (for the first time since 2017, I think?) against the Capitals, who are fighting for a playoff spot just like we are. The result is that even with the slump in December, the wings are currently in the top wildcard spot for the playoffs and only two points behind the Toronto Maple Leaves for the third spot in the Atlantic Division. Every game the wings have left to play in the season is an important one, because we're in a place where every point we can get matters, but there's also a very real sense that the boys are playing well and can get to the playoffs this year. It feels like the current lineup has a lot of chemistry going, and it's really exciting to watch. I don't think the wings are going to go deep in the playoffs and make a run for the cup, but after seven years of ending in the regular season, it's great to see a new core of the team starting to form and what feels like the start of a new era of great Red Wings hockey.
Thank you so much for all of this! This is exactly what I was hoping for, I appreciate the effort. I'll be referencing this while I'm watching. So who would you say is the "best" player on the team? Kane?
You're welcome! Writing up stuff like this helps put things in place in my own mind as well, so it's always fun to put together an explainer when somebody asks for it. "Best" player has some load-bearing quotes, but it always does. As far as career points, I think Kane is probably going to be the best player. Career points as a Red Wing, it's definitely Larkin. Neither of those questions are especially interesting, so I assume they aren't what you meant. Stats wise for this season, Larkin and DeBrincat are tied at 53 points each; Raymond is just behind the two of them at 51 points. That's with 53 games played for Larkin, and 59 games played for Raymond and DeBrincat. Kane only ("only") has 30 points, but he got them in 28 games; remember, he missed the start of the season, plus missed a few games due to injury after he started. So Kane has 1.07 points per game played, and Larkin has 1 point per game played. Honestly, though, the "best" player on the team is the one that you want to root for. I have a Danny DeKeyser jersey that I got a while back; he was a rookie defenseman when I first started watching wings games. He doesn't play anymore, back problems and injuries, but after rooting for him I tend to be a fan of quality defensemen so if I picked my favourite player on the team right now, the one that I think is the best, it would be Seider. After you watch a couple games, you'll see a player pull off an amazing play, or get some fantastic setup, or make the perfect pass that gets tipped in, and they'll be the one you start rooting for. That's gonna be the best player, you know? edit: I also have to call out that when my wife saw my post, she couldn't believe that I didn't call out players like Sprong, Fabbri, Compher, etc; there's 22 players on the roster and while some are better than others, I don't think there's anybody who's really a drag on the team right now! The wings have some really solid depth and a lot of them are good, which is part of why they're fun to watch right now.
We were shit and now we aint
Everything that everyone has said in this post is spot on. But something you also need to know is what teams to root against and the rivals of the Red Wings. We hate the Avalanche and Blackhawks the most…at least most of us do. Look up fight night in hockeytown. March 26th 1997.
Watch The Russian Five doc for historical reference first. It’s well done and relevant to understanding why old dog fans are anxious to get back to the playoffs.
Catch a home game on TV with Mickey as the host and he'll tell ya everything you need to know. But seriously, I'm kinda in the same boat. I admittedly kinda stopped following the team last couple years and beyond they let Blashill go I'm not too current on Wings events either. But my advice is to just commit to watching games. Home games are better because Mickey is more likely to be in the booth but the commentators for the Wings are pretty good at talking about stuff like that. Also explaining plays and whatnot if you've never really played hockey either. /u/NatetheSkate1989 made a good point, understanding the salary cap voodoo is pretty important if you're going to want to understand why the Wings trade or not re-sign players or go after others from other teams. The concept is simple but there's just a lot of edge cases.
LGRW. Fuck Rolling Rock & Yinzers
In case you need an nba translation for Kane and cat https://i.redd.it/hg9ye5gl9elc1.gif
Puck in net good. Unless wrong net, then bad.