Who are the current rivals of the Detroit Red Wings?

The Ottawa Senators have become Public Enemy No.1

Most hockey rivalries began on the ice and have existed for years. This is not the case for the rivalry between the Detroit Red Wings and the Ottawa Senators. In fact, neither of these teams seemed to have any semblance of a rivalry since the Red Wings were moved back to the Eastern Conference, and it didn't start on the ice either.

After the Senators thrashed the Red Wings in their back-to-back series during the 2022-23 season, both physically and on the scoreboard. Things escalated not on the ice but on X (Formerly known as Twitter) between Fanbases. While most of it was primarily your standard Twitter feud of fanbases trying to convince each other why their team is better, things took a MASSIVE turn during the 2023-24 season.

It was obvious that the Red Wings remembered those two games at the end of the 2022-23 season. They played noticeably more aggressive against the Senators, and they were very chippy games every time. However, things took a turn during a game between the two teams on 12/9/2023, when a hit from behind by Mathieu Joseph, combined with the unfortunate timing of a hit by Parker Kelly, caused Dylan Larkin to suffer an upper-body injury resulting in him being rendered unconscious. Things only escalated from there between the fanbases as a select few members of the Ottawa Senators would make memes and jokes about Larkin's injury, as well as bringing up Larkin and his wife losing their child earlier in the year and made jokes about.

Red Wings fans were obviously upset about these comments and responded by making some less-than-kind comments to Ottawa fans as well. This has led to various members of both Red Wings and Senators Twitter essentially being at each other's throats repetitively. With both teams on the rise, this rivalry on and off the ice doesn't seem to be going away any time soon.