The Detroit Red Wings and Columbus Blue Jackets went toe-to-toe on Thursday night in a spirited affair that saw the team from Ohio come out victorious, with a 6-5 shootout victory. The Red Wings earned a point, but one of the flaws that may hold this team back from the playoffs for a 10th straight year have been brought to light.
Dylan Larkin scored his team-leading 15th goal, Lucas Raymond followed with his 10th of the year and Alex DeBrincat gave the Red Wings a 5-4 lead just over halfway through the third with his 14th on the season. The three have now combined for 39 goals, exactly what fans have come to expect out of this trio.
Patrick Kane looked like the man who is referred to as “Showtime”, picking up a loose puck and beating Blue Jackets' netminder Elvis Merzlikins with his trademark wrist shot, extending his point streak to a modest three games.
So, what is the issue here?
The Red Wings’ lack of forward depth scoring really showed. After the four-goal showing, the team now has scored 87 goals, which places them 11th in the league, but when you take a closer look at this total, 44.8 percent of them have come from the previously mentioned trio of Larkin, Raymond and DeBrincat.
If you include Kane and Seider in this conversation, two of the mainstays on the top power play unit, the total rises to 47 goals, clocking in at 54 percent of the team total.
James van Riemsdyk was the lone Red Wings forward not on the top power play unit to score, chipping in his fifth of the season and second game in a row with a goal.
Yes, your top players are expected to drive the bus and power the offense, but they need more out of others if they want to stick around in the Eastern Conference.
Here are three players that the Detroit Red Wings need to help with depth scoring
Andrew Copp
Copp was brought in on Jul. 1 2022, with a five-year, $28.125 contract, hoping to carry over the momentum he finished up the 2021-22 season, where he recorded 18 points across 16 regular- season games with the New York Rangers, followed by 14 more points in 20 playoff games.
Over three seasons with the Red Wings, the point totals have regressed each year, totalling 42, 33 and 23. The 31-year-old chipped in two assists last night to raise his point total to 11, but of those 11 points, 10 are assists.
The 11-year veteran scored his lone goal of the 2025-26 campaign on an empty net to make it 6-3 against the Toronto Maple Leafs in the team's second game of the year. Now centering DeBrincat and Kane, while also playing on the team’s second power play unit, the Wings need Copp to start chipping in.
Elmer Soderblom
Soderblom struggled to find himself in the lineup consistently this season, appearing in 15 of the team’s 28 games to this point. The 6-foot-8 Swede has been scratched multiple times and dealt with a minor injury that required a brief stint on injured reserve.
When in the lineup, the production has not been there, as the 24-year-old has only recorded one goal up to this point. Signed to a two-year, $2.25 million extension on Jul. 1, the Red Wings need the player who posted eight points over 26 games in 2022-23 and 11 points in 26 games last year.
A forward who skates well and has great hands, they need to get his game going to where it was at the previous two seasons, to take some of the pressure off of the Red Wings’ star players.
Marco Kasper
The former eighth-overall selection in the 2022 NHL draft needs to get going. The young Austrian flashed too much potential last season in his rookie year to be stuck on three points. Having recorded 37 points in 77 games, this is a player who can contribute in a top-six role.
Kasper scored in the second game of the regular season, then chipped in two more goals against the Los Angeles Kings on Oct. 30, but it has been quiet since, finding himself held off the score sheet in 17 straight games.
Kasper is a minus-12 to this point, mired in a sophomore slump. But of all the players on the Red Wings off to slow starts this year, the ceiling for Kasper is the highest, and if he can return to form, the Wings’ offense gets that much deeper and stronger.