The Detroit Red Wings won their sixth straight game on Sunday night in a hard-working, determined effort. It was the second game of a back-to-back with less than 20 hours of rest in overtime versus the Vancouver Canucks on a brutal Western Canada road trip. Winning that game gives them 59 points in 53 games played and has put them in a wild-card spot for the first time in the 2024-25 season.
Alex DeBrincat scored two goals, including the overtime game-winning goal off a slick dish from number 23, with the Vancouver Canucks goaltender, Kevin Lankinen, sliding the other way. It's becoming a classic move in the Detroit Red Wings toolkit, Lucas Raymond mesmerizing and drawing opponents into him as he no-look passes to DeBrincat. A benefactor of the show Raymond is putting on for his opponents, DeBrincat is left in his wheelhouse with a yawning cage.
DeBrincat earned four points (three goals and one assist) this past week, making him the Detroit Red Wings player of the week:
Cat-tastic! 😼
— Detroit Red Wings (@DetroitRedWings) February 3, 2025
Alex DeBrincat is our @xfinity player of the week! pic.twitter.com/XVAoJJachL
As the pressure mounts, DeBrincat is becoming an invaluable part of the Detroit Red Wings' success. It's not a league to score goals in, but DeBrincat is finding different ways to score on a team once starved for offense. Any hope of ending the playoff drought in Hockeytown partially rests on DeBrincat's shoulders.
Detroit Red Wings hopes for getting into the playoffs hinges on Alex DeBrincat continuing to score goals
The Detroit Red Wings forward seems to be settling into his role on the team and is living up to expectations. He's in the second year of a four-year contract with a cap hit of $7.87 million. I would have been happy to get DeBrincat on the Detroit Red Wings, but not for the $9.00M plus cap hit he was expected to command. Somehow, Steve Yzerman got him reeled in for under $8.00M and it's proving to be the right deal. As importantly, DeBrincat fits right in with the Detroit Red Wings, something that hasn't been the case in DeBrincat's past with another Atlantic Division team. He is the third-highest-paid forward on the team and the third-highest-scoring forward as well. Coming off two sub-30-goal seasons, it's a relief to see him scoring at a 35-goal pace.
DeBrincat and Dylan Larkin are tied in goals at 23 and are on pace to be the highest goal scorers for the Detroit Red Wings since Marian Hossa scored 40 in 2008-09.
The Detroit Red Wings have a record of 13 wins and seven losses when DeBrincat scores, which proves that as Debrincat goes, so do the Detroit Red Wings.
Within the Eastern Conference, 15 of the 16 teams have a legitimate chance of making the playoffs. There are only seven points between 15th place Philadelphia Flyers and a possible wild-card berth. It's imperative for the Detroit Red Wings to go on an extended winning streak and avoid any long losing streak. They have done well over the last 18 games, but the road ahead is long, and they are definitely not out of the woods.
Teams like the Tampa Bay Lightning and New York Rangers are on their heels and have the pedigree, talent, and playoff experience to get their act together and gobble up all the points in the latter part of the regular season. These are teams that have been there before and know what it takes to play games beyond the 82-game regular season. The Detroit Red Wings season has figuratively ended on or before April 12th for the past nine years.
Still, I am optimistic about their playoff chances. With the improvement of the core players such as Mo Seider, Raymond, and Larkin, the experience of recent cup winners such as J.T. Compher and Vladimir Tarasenko, pretty good goaltending from Alex Lyon and Cam Talbot, and enough players on entry-level contracts to make some kind of deadline splash, we could have the ingredients to get into the playoff mix this year, and DeBrincat could be the guy to push the envelope.