The Detroit Red Wings are officially done for the season. The next few weeks should allow everyone in the organization to decompress ahead of the 2026 NHL Draft.
Unfortunately, this year’s draft will see the Red Wings miss a crucial piece: A first-round pick. That pick went to St. Louis in the Justin Faulk trade. That will be the subject of another conversation for another day.
That situation aside, the Red Wings could very well be condemned to the “mushy middle.” That term refers to teams that aren’t quite good enough to be a serious playoff contender, but aren’t bad enough to completely tank.
These are clubs that make the playoffs one season and get bounced in the first round. Then, they miss the playoffs another season before returning to the postseason the next year. And so, turns the wheel for these clubs.
For the Red Wings, the mushy middle seems the best they can hope for unless something changes. Those changes will have to be substantial in order to get out of the NHL’s dreaded middle class.
As Max Bultman pointed out in a recent piece in The Athletic, the Red Wings may need to follow the Minnesota Wild’s lead to truly become playoff contenders.
The Wild, as Bultman noted, made bold moves to get themselves out of that middle. Now, it’s too soon to declare the Wild out of that NHL middle class. But it looks like they have a chance to get past the Dallas Stars this season.
What exactly did the Wild do?
GM Bill Guerin had the gall to bring in big-ticket pieces. For instance, Guerin sent Kevin Fiala to the LA Kings in exchange for Brock Faber and a first-round pick. Faber has turned out to be a top-pairing defenseman. Meanwhile, the first-round pick in that trade turned into Liam Ohgren.
Ohgren is no longer with the Wild because he was part of the package that landed Quinn Hughes.
That’s what needs to change. The Red Wings can’t be afraid of making waves. While it’s understandable that Steve Yzerman wants to keep his best young pieces close to home, there will be a time when something needs to give.
Red Wings could be a major move away from serious contention
The Justin Faulk trade was a major step forward. The Wings were finally willing to part with a first-round pick, while adding a mid-rounder and a lower-tier prospect.
And it’s not that Faulk wasn’t good down the stretch for the Red Wings. It’s that such a move should be just the beginning of a bigger push towards contention.
For instance, other big-ticket players were reportedly available at the NHL trade deadline. Game-changers like Robert Thomas in St. Louis, Ryan O’Reilly in Nashville, or even Nazem Kadri could have all been pieces that could have transformed the Red Wings this year.
Yzerman chose to sit on his hands, and, well, we all saw where things went. Perhaps this offseason, Yzerman will have no other choice but to make a major splash. He’ll have to figure out how to make that happen.
But if one thing is certain, it’s that the Red Wings will have to make a major move if they really want to get out of that mushy middle. Otherwise, Red Wings fans may face season after season of mediocre results.
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