Detroit Red Wings: The 2021 NHL Metro Division Preview

The NHL’s Metro Division is shaping up to be one of the most competitive in the league. Let’s take a look at the teams of the east and see how they’ll match up against the Red Wings.

Carolina Hurricanes

Record Last Season: 36-12-8

Playoff Result: Lost in the Second Round

Expectation This Season: the Stanley Cup

What to Expect Heading Into the Season

It’s been a loud offseason for the Hurricanes.

Most recently, the team caught league wide attention with a $6.1 million dollar offer sheet for the Montreal Canadien’s Jesperi Kotkaniemi. The Hurricanes were not shy with their taunting of Montreal – especially on Twitter. Carolina made it very clear they had not forgotten Montreal’s offer sheet move on Sebastian Aho just a few years ago.

However, the move wasn’t purely a revenge story. Although Kotkaniemi might not live up to his $6.1 million price tag, the Hurricanes get a young center full of potential. One can argue about value, but the move certainly bolstered the forward room.

Ethan Bear was another important acquisition by the team. The Hurricanes sent Warren Foegele over to the Edmonton Oilers in exchanged for the 24 year old defenseman. Bear is an agile, talented skater that seems to only be trending upwards. Adding to the blue line was essential, considering the loss of one of the best defenseman in the league, Dougie Hamilton. Bear isn’t at Hamilton’s level, but he’s young enough to continue development and ensures that there isn’t a major hole in the blue line. The team also moved to sign Tony DeAngelo in one of the most controversial moves of the offseason. While DeAngelo is pretty mediocre defensively, he’s effective as a power play quarterback and has a decent offensive skillset – in 2019-20, he scored 15 goals and 38 assists in 68 games.

More relevant to fans of the Detroit Red Wings was the trade of Calder Finalist Alex Nedeljkovic. The young goaltender finished with a .932 save percentage and 1.9 goals against through 23 games. In the postseason,  But after a bit a contract dispute, the organization decided to head in a different direction in net. They acquired two goaltenders, signing Frederik Andersen and Antti Raanta.

Andresen is a veteran goaltender with a history of good save percentages, although his recent numbers with the Toronto Maple Leafs are on the decline. Last year, he finished with a .895 save percentage in 24 games. Raanta played good when healthy with the Arizona Coyotes. Last season, he had a .905 save percentage through 12 games. The year before that, he finished with .921 in 33 games. While the goalie tandem isn’t bad for the Hurricanes, it’s a stretch to say they are an improvement over last year’s Nedeljkovic-Petr Mrazek duo (especially considering Nedeljkovic’s trajectory).

It’s hard to argue that the Carolina Hurricanes improved on paper in the offseason. The roster saw a major makeover with some key losses – in a boom or bust offseason, management is going to be under heavy scrutiny this year. The team is likely going to be playoff bound, but we’ll see just how far they go with a remodeled roster.

Detroit did quite well in their matchups against the Hurricanes this year, finishing with a 4-4 record against one of the best teams in the division. But Carolina is never an easy victory; they’ve had a solid defense for quite some time, but with all the roster changes, the Hurricanes are a hard matchup to predict.

New York Islanders

Record Last Season: 32-17-7

Playoff Result: Lost in the Conference Finals

Expectations This Season: the Stanley Cup

The New York Islanders have been one of the toughest outs in the playoffs of late. The team as made back-to-back conference finals, losing to the eventual Stanley Cup Champion Tampa Bay Lightning.

New York’s offseason was the opposite of Carolina’s, as the team remained mostly unchanged. The biggest signing was Zach Parise, who will add some veteran depth to the forward group. Zdeno will do much do the same.

They traded Nick Leddy to the Detroit Red Wings in exchange for Richard Panik (likely a depth or fourth line forward for the team) and a second round pick.

Essentially, for a successful season, Barry Trotz and the Islanders need to keep doing what they’ve been doing. Make it to the playoffs and play suffocating, intense hockey to make a deep run. After making back-to-back conference finals, the Islanders need to capitalize on their momentum sooner than later.

The Islanders are a tough nut to crack defensively. Unless they really take some steps forward this season, the Red Wings offense is going to have a hard time penetrating such a well coached, defensively aggressive team. The under will probably be a safe bet when the two face off this season.

New York Rangers

Record Last Season: 27-23-6

Playoff Result: N/A

Expectations This Season: Make the Playoffs

The New York Rangers made some majors changes in the off-season, including at coach – Gerard Gallant stepped in for the fired David Quinn.

GM Chris Drury made some acquisitions through trade to solidify the forward room. Ryan Reaves and Samuel Blains are going the bolster the bottom-six effectively, and trade for Tampa Bay’s Barclay Goodrow gives some versatility among the entire lineup.

However, the most important thing for the Rangers will be development of the younger players, namely Alexis Lafrenière. The former first overall pick didn’t quite live up to draft expectations in his rookie year, but he has plenty of time to improve.

Again, Detroit has a tough defense to face off against in the Rangers. Norris Trophy Winner Adam Fox leads a good defensive group. Offensively, there’s a good chance the group makes some major improvements with the facelift the forward room got.

Pittsburgh Penguins

Record Last Season: 37-16-3

Playoff Result: Lost in the First Round

Expectations This Season: the Stanley Cup

Every year, people start to predict that this is the season that the Penguins will finally fall apart. And nearly every year they defy the odds and make the playoffs.

However, they’ve lost in the first round for three straight years now. And this season, they will miss their two best players for the first few weeks – Evgeni Malkin and Sidney Crosby. It’s going to be a struggle to push for the playoffs in such a competitive division with a rough record thy rough the first month. They could get behind early and never get back.

But we’ve been saying this for years now. So don’t doubt Pittsburgh. They still have plenty of talent and experience on their roster, so don’t count them out come playoff time. The Red Wings are improving and Pittsburgh seems to be the same, if not a little worse. Pittsburgh has had the success of late, but Detroit can start changing the narratives this season.

Columbus Blue Jackets

Record Last Season: 18-26-12

Playoff Result: N/A

Expectations This Season: Rebuild

The Blue Jackets will almost certainly finish last in the division this season. After years of failing to make it over the hump in the playoffs, and some controversy surrounding coaching, the Jackets decided to make some major “adjustments”. Seth Jones was traded to Chicago and Cam Atkinson was traded to Philadelphia. While they acquired some draft capital, they made absolutely no moves to improve their team now. 

If the Red Wings have any easy wins in the Metro, it’s against the Jackets. They have a weak defensive core and all of their most important forwards had extremely disappointing seasons.

Washington Capitals

Record Last Season: 36-15-5

Playoff Result: Lost in the First Round

Expectations This Season: the Stanley Cup

At this point, the Capitals are in the same boat as the Penguins. With an aging core and a few disappointing playoff losses, there isn’t a lot of hope for the future of the team. The policy is win now.

With Alexander Ovenchkin leading the group, it’s hard to entirely count this group out. And despite the age, they are still a very solid team without any major flaws. The Anthony Mantha trade could go a long way of he starts to contribute, as they could use another true top-six winger in their forward group. This off-season was silent and the team remains mostly the same, minus a few veteran defenseman.

The Detroit Red Wings are going to be a young team this year. Normally, that’s a good thing, but against an extremely experienced team like the Capitals, it might get ugly. Also, let’s not forget just how talented this team still is. They aren’t surging, but they haven’t gotten too much worse.