For Red Wings to make playoffs, they'll have to do it the hard way. And that's OK

DETROIT — This city is going to be electric today.

After a heart-stopping run to end the regular season, the home team is hosting a playoff game for the first time in a long time.

We’re talking about the Detroit Tigers, of course. But six months ago, I was prepared to type those exact same words about the Red Wings. You remember: that final week last April featured four straight games that went to overtime. The Red Wings won three of them. It was madness.

It just wasn’t enough. A tiebreaker kept them out of the playoffs for an eighth straight year.

And on the eve of a new season, with a walking reminder of what they just missed playing out across the street at Comerica Park, the Red Wings remember, too.

“Look,” Joe Veleno said recently. “Last year didn’t feel like too long ago for me. … I still have every single memory of (that) last stretch of games last year.”

And no doubt some of those memories are painful. The Red Wings left a lot of points on the table in March. They had losing streaks of seven and four before making that final mad dash to nearly get in anyway. A rare empty-net goal in a tie game elsewhere ultimately sealed their fate.

You might want to forget all of that. But the Red Wings can’t. While the way last season ended stung, that experience of coming up just short is perhaps the best thing they have going for them as their 2024-25 season is set to begin.

“I think (it’s) just proving to yourself you can play in those kinds of environments, of pressure,” captain Dylan Larkin said. “You know it’s going to be hard. You’re playing through injury. You’re doing whatever it takes. You’re just playing to win.”

For a long time now, the narrative circling the Red Wings has been essentially that they needed a savior. Whether it was a draft pick, a free-agent signing or even a general manager, the sentiment has been that someone, someday was going to finally have — or be — “the answer.”

That sentiment might have been useful for surviving the dog days of the rebuild, but its time has come and gone. There is no chosen one. And that’s OK.

Make no mistake: The Red Wings have good players. Great players, even. Larkin is a star No. 1 center. Lucas Raymond and Moritz Seider are franchise cornerstones on the wing and defense. Patrick Kane, even at 35 years old, is one of the greatest hockey talents of this generation. There are more prospects with potential on the way, too.

For a fan base that became accustomed to lineups teeming with Hall of Famers in the late ’90s and early 2000s, that may ring a bit hollow. But for the 2024-25 Red Wings, the path back to the playoffs relies on embracing what they have and what they are in much the same way they did last April.

The playoffs — and even just a playoff push — have a way of bringing that out. The pressure, the desperation, the importance of every play: It can all be a lot to take in. But to Larkin’s point, it forces a sort of stress test many of the returning Red Wings passed, even in coming up just short.

Think about Raymond. He was 21 for most of last season and had a breakout campaign by any measure. But down the stretch, in those games that mattered so much, he found another level. A hat trick in Pittsburgh. A tying goal in the last two minutes of the home finale. And then the OT winner in the same game. In the eight games Detroit played in April, Raymond had seven goals and 12 points.

“That’s why we need to get in these moments,” Red Wings coach Derek Lalonde said at the time. “There’s huge growth in it.”

Now, Raymond has been there. So has Seider, who took the NHL’s toughest minutes last season in coming as close to the playoffs as he’s ever been.

They’ve seen that any game last year could have been the difference between making it or not. Those two March losses to Arizona. That blown 4-0 lead against San Jose. Just one more point in any of their nine overtime losses.

“That just basically told us that we have to take every game even more serious,” Seider said.

It sounds small, but that slight shift in urgency can make all the difference if the Red Wings can tap into it earlier this season.

Look no further than the team across the street. The Tigers, famously, looked out of it in mid-August. They sold at the trade deadline and called up their young players. Then a funny thing happened. Forced by necessity into a staggering level of reliance on their bullpen, they started playing playoff-style baseball. Everyone had a role. Every moment had leverage. And they thrived in it.

There’s no perfect parallel to bullpen management or pinch-hitting in hockey. But there certainly are still matchups, and moments that demand high-pressure execution. There are big power plays. There are late leads to protect. And at the risk of torturing the comparison, it feels like that’s how the Red Wings are going to have to win their games, too: by surviving the tough matchups and getting the big play when they really need it. And yes, at some point, by getting some more youthful energy into the lineup.

Just look at the way this Red Wings roster is now constructed. In many ways, it looks a lot like last season. But I don’t think it’s a coincidence that when I asked Seider what excites him about this group, part of his answer was about players accepting their roles.

“I think that roles are pretty clear for everybody,” he said. “Everybody knows who needs to step up and try to transition into another gear. And I think we’re ready for the challenge.”

We know what that means for the goal-scorers such as Raymond, Larkin, Kane and Alex DeBrincat. For Seider, it means taking on impossibly tough opponents and coming out at least even. Same for forwards such as Tyler Motte, Andrew Copp, Christian Fischer and Michael Rasmussen. They may not get the headlines on most nights, but if the Red Wings take that next step, the dirty work those players do will be a big reason why.

Not many are picking Detroit to break its playoff drought this season. I’m not, either. The Eastern Conference is just that tough.

But there is a path — even if it won’t be the easy one.

For all the glory that came with those star-studded Red Wings teams of yore, this city has always been drawn to teams that have to do it the hard way. The Goin’ to Work Pistons. The Dan Campbell Lions. These very Tigers. Those teams had (and have) stars, to be sure — but above all, they’ve embraced who they were, and the roles the team needed them to play.

I’m not saying this Red Wings team has that level of success in store. But if there’s a benefit from last season’s heartbreak, and from the relatively quiet offseason that followed, it’s that it showed everyone involved knows just how close the playoffs were. It was right there, within reach — no savior needed.

So it’s no coincidence that on day one of training camp this year, the message from the Red Wings coaching staff was rather basic: “We just need a little more, in anything we do.”

Simple, nothing splashy. Focused, nothing flashy.

And today, across the street, is a shining example of where it can lead.

(Photo: Michael Reaves / Getty Images)