General Wings Comments 2025-26

[Motor City Sonics]

15 hours ago, Jason_R said:

It will be at least three years and several strokes of good luck with respect to the development of their prospects before they might be a top team in the conference. Until then they will scratch and claw to be in playoff contention. 

This team, the way it is now, isn't going to scratch and claw for anything.  They're the softest Wings team since the 70's.   

 

Las night they could have gone out and played for pride, but instead got destroyed because they have no pride.  

Mo is the only one I care about.  They can trade every other player and I wouldn't care, because they don't seem to.  

[Hongbit]

Is there a reason they didn’t bring up Cossa to play one of the last two games?

[Jason_R]

2 hours ago, Motor City Sonics said:

This team, the way it is now, isn't going to scratch and claw for anything.  They're the softest Wings team since the 70's.   

 

Las night they could have gone out and played for pride, but instead got destroyed because they have no pride.  

Mo is the only one I care about.  They can trade every other player and I wouldn't care, because they don't seem to.  

Yeah that was ugly. 

Mac has seen these guys long enough to know who the problems are. And he’s been around long enough to be able to shoot straight with Stevie. It will be a real bad sign if all of CCR are on the roster next year. It will be a good sign if they can figure out how to move on from two of them. 

[Jason_R]

Worth a read. 

[Shinzaki]

I'm not giving Todd a free pass...your team completely tanks down the stretch two years in a row?  Sure the roster is flawed...but they appeared to lack motivation over much of the last two months.  That's at least partly on him.

If they do start relying more on younger players...I do not think he's they man to integrate them quickly

[slothfacekilla]

17 hours ago, Jason_R said:

 

This season truly might be my joker moment

[Jason_R]

43 minutes ago, Shinzaki said:

I'm not giving Todd a free pass...your team completely tanks down the stretch two years in a row?  Sure the roster is flawed...but they appeared to lack motivation over much of the last two months.  That's at least partly on him.

If they do start relying more on younger players...I do not think he's they man to integrate them quickly

From the Bultman article. I agree 100% that this roster doesn’t have nearly enough players who are hard to play against. Todd seems to agree. He doesn’t control the roster, so it will be interesting to see whether he can persuade Yzerman to bring in a few more players to serve as irritants on the ice and in the locker room

  

This year, the only forwards who registered 100 hits for the Red Wings were Kasper and Finnie. The division-rival Ottawa Senators had seven such forwards. The Boston Bruins had five. Those were the teams that earned the Eastern Conference’s wild-card bids.

It’s a problem in the bottom six, where there was no consistent identity throughout the year. J.T. Compher entered Wednesday’s game with 22 hits all season while also putting up only 28 points. Michael Rasmussen went from the 120-140-hit range in the past four seasons to just half that this year (64) — while also at the lowest per-game point production rate of his career (0.22). Free-agent signing Mason Appleton had 89 hits, more than he had a season ago with the  Winnipeg Jets, but considering he had 3 points in his final 34 games, there wasn’t enough overall to move the needle.

This is not to say the Red Wings should fill their bottom six with nothing but fighters or mindless body-bangers next season. But they have too many lineup spots being filled by players who aren’t finding enough ways to contribute, and there is value in adding at least one of that bruising style of player — even just as a deterrent to the liberties opposing teams take with Detroit’s stars.

[gehringer_2]

I wonder if the Wings philosophy isn't just wrong. Yzerman looks at his own career and probably thinks he should have been the 200 ft player he eventually became from the beginning and everyone else should be too. But maybe it just doesn't work that way - maybe  you just have to let young players play and take the speed, energy and skill they bring on their terms (at least a little) along with the mistakes because if you try to beat them into fully 'responsible' players before you ever let them play, they end up stillborn. Just a thought, whatever it is they seem to be doing something wrong.

The hits thing - it has to be one or the other. I don't care you hit anyone if you score and forecheck, but if not you do at least need to be hard to play against. No question the Wings have too many players doing neither. And to me this also goes back to why you can't utilize Seider and Edvinsson more. They can't risk spending much time deep in the offensive zone if there is nobody who can/will backcheck hard.

Edited 3 hours ago by gehringer_2

[Cruzer1]

20 hours ago, buddha said:

i dont see how you can watch this team and think that.  they got caved in by the best teams quite regularly when those teams turned up the intensity.

I'm talking about Cossa and Augustine.