Red Wings January 2026 Game Threads

[buddha]

12 minutes ago, Mr.TaterSalad said:

We're headed into a full on collapse now. After the last 4 games I expect this to be as bad as the collapse after the Four Nations tournament from a year ago. Your can add a fifth game because they ain't beating Colorado tomorrow. I'm almost don't expect the playoffs anymore. Not quite, but almost. 

This team has a lack of top and talent and now, apparently, a lack of real depth too. We lose one guy in our lineup or a goalie has a down stretch of games and we're cooked. I don't think one move at the deadline fixes the issue, unless we're talking about bringing in a top talent like a Quinn Hughes.

The trade deadline is March 3rd and the NHL resumes from the Olympics on February 18th. If this collapse continues for a week or week and a half after the break, I expect Yzerman to hold onto his young players and draft capital and continue building his plan out. If we see the collapse continue and he makes a move, that to me shows there may be some pressure from above with Chris to get this turnaround going. I doubt that though, because Chris cares about money more than winning. Unless he's in save my job from getting fired mode and feels forced to make a movie, I don't think it's necessarily true that he's making a move.

the wongs are probably due for regression, and NO ONE IN THE EAST EVER LOSES so they may drop in the standings; however, you do this every time the wings lose a couple games in a row.  you say illitch doesnt care, yzerman is dumb, and we'll never win. 

then they win 3 in a row and you apologize.  until the next time...  🙂

[Cruzer1]

Woods is excellent, I'm going to miss him.

[lordstanley]

It has been 3 games. Before that the Wings were 4-0-1 in including a 5-1 win in Winnipeg right before this. 

[Mr.TaterSalad]

3 hours ago, buddha said:

the wongs are probably due for regression, and NO ONE IN THE EAST EVER LOSES so they may drop in the standings; however, you do this every time the wings lose a couple games in a row.  you say illitch doesnt care, yzerman is dumb, and we'll never win. 

then they win 3 in a row and you apologize.  until the next time...  🙂

They do this every year too. They tease us with playoff possibilities, collapse down the stretch or in the month of December, miss the playoffs, and send us an email about next year's season ticket package.

[Mr.TaterSalad]

We've been trending towards the bottom of the league in 5 on 5 offense over the last month. We're 23rd in the league in scoring 5 on 5 for the season. Simon is hurt and we don't have depth or quality on defense to replace a guy like that. Larkin, similar to last year going into the Four Nations, is in another slump. He has 2 goal and 6 points total in the last 10 games. He needs to be producing far better than a 0.6ppg type of player. We have to have him producing in order to succeed as we clearly lack the scoring depth without his production. We've been carried by Gibson often and some good defense over the past month and a half. We need Gibson and a healthy defense, with Simon fully ready to go, to keep us afloat. We will be in trouble if Gibson returns to earlier season form.

Add onto that, we have some of the fewest games left to play of any NHL team. There are at least 8 playoff teams who will have at least 1 to 2 games in hand on us post Olympics. So we can't afford another collapse versus teams that will have games in hand over us.

Excuse me if I am a bit concerned based both on past history and our current statistical performances.