So far in 2024-25, Red Wings hockey has been nothing short of frustrating for a team that needed a big season. What we’re currently seeing right now is a group of players in red and white uniforms that have run out of talent when they possess the puck.
This was a top-10 team in scoring last year, and when opponents played the Red Wings, they knew scoring four-plus goals a game was often the only way to beat them. These days, scoring twice or three times tops is enough, because, next to Dylan Larkin, the Wings have yet to find a consistent scorer.
Yesterday, I listed Moritz Seider as the team’s MVP for October and the first part of November, but Seider isn’t scoring goals. Right now, the only player who seems to recognize that goal-scoring is important in the game of hockey is captain Dylan Larkin, but Larkin isn’t scoring 200-plus goals per season and bailing this team out.
So, that leaves us with the burning question: Who on the Red Wings is going to step up and start scoring goals? It’s not like this team is in the same position as, say, the San Jose Sharks, a group that has limited options in their top six.
It’s long past time for the Red Wings to answer a burning question
So, who’s stepping up and finally taking pressure off of the high-scoring Larkin, who seems to snag another goal every time I sit down to write an article? When I talked about Dylan Larkin ‘wreaking havoc,’ he had something like six or seven goals. That number is up to nine, and it makes me curious to see what his overall goal total will be.
As of right now, only Alex DeBrincat (six goals) and Andrew Copp (five goals) are anywhere near Larkin. Nobody else on the team has found twine more than three times, including Patrick Kane, Vladimir Tarasenko, and Lucas Raymond. But hey, at least Raymond is going crazy with helpers, so he’s doing something.
What’s even more disturbing is that nobody on the Red Wings has over five goals at even strength, and the player who does is Copp. So maybe he needs to start taking more shots at the net to get this going. Either way, something has got to give in Hockeytown or else we’re going to see this team tack on another year to its playoff drought because they simply don’t know how to score.