Red Wings' postseason dream feels painfully familiar, but something may be different this year

It’s March of 2026 and the Detroit Red Wings are in fourth place in the Atlantic Division and hold the top wild card playoff spot.

If that sounds like déjà vu all over again, that’s because it is. Here’s what the standings looked like entering March in 2025.

If the season ended there, Detroit would have made the past two postseasons and be primed for their third-straight trip to the playoffs after missing the field every year since their last berth in 2016.

Red Wings record/standings entering March 1

March woes undoing promising seasons

The Ides of March derailed the Red Wings’ playoff hopes in the previous two seasons. During the 2023-24 campaign, captain Dylan Larkin (69 points in 68 games that year) suffered an injury during the team’s 4-0 loss to eventual Stanley Cup Champion Florida on March 2. The team’s top center would miss the next eight games that month, during which the team went 2-6 and got outscored 37-20 (or 41-20 while going 2-7 if you include the game Larkin got hurt).

Detroit defeated the New York Islanders, 6-3, in Larkin’s return to the lineup, but went winless in the last four games of the month to finish 3-9-2. That skid moved the Red Wings from eight points clear of the Islanders and Devils and cruising toward a postseason berth on March 1 to two points out of the playoffs by April Fool’s Day. The team rallied to win their last three games of the regular season to finish tied with Washington for the final playoff spot with 91 points, but missed the postseason due to a tiebreaker.

A year later and with a new coach in Todd McLellan who brought the team’s season back from the dead when he replaced Derek Lalonde in December, the Red Wings hit a long break in February ahead of the Four Nations Faceoff leading the wild card chase. The team won seven in a row leading up to the final game before the break, which they dropped to Tampa Bay, then grabbed five of six points immediately upon returning to play before dropping a home tilt with Columbus on Feb. 27.

Despite the loss, the Red Wings were tied with the Blue Jackets for the top wild card spot and were four points ahead of the non-playoff field. Despite no major injuries to the core (at least any that caused them to miss games), Detroit lost its first five contests and posted a 4-10 record for the month with all 10 setbacks in regulation, giving them an eight-point March for the second year in row. The Red Wings went from four points up on the teams outside the playoffs to three points back of Montreal for the second wild card spot and 10 (!!!) behind the Ottawa Senators.

The Red Wings again put on a late surge, winning three in a row heading into the final regular season contest, but lost a critical game against the Canadiens beforehand and five points out of the postseason with 86 points.

Wings’ core absent or struggling in March

Detroit is a combined 7-19-2 in March the past two years, netting only 16 of 56 possible points in that span. As the popular saying goes in hockey, you need your best players to be your best players in order to have success. The Red Wings up front rely heavily on captain Dylan Larkin and Lucas Raymond to carry the mail offensively. As evidenced by their breakouts over the past two seasons.

Detroit’s dynamic duo of Larkin and Raymond both averaged nearly a point per game the past two seasons, a 0.93 point per game pace over that span to be precise. However, March has been a different story.

Larkin missing more than half of March in 2024 played a huge role in the team’s slide while also putting more pressure on Raymond to perform without him. Both still experienced production dips in 2025 despite playing every game. While offense on an individual level has ebbs and flows over a long season, that type of dip for a team that hasn’t boasted a plethora of depth scoring gets magnified for a team on the playoff fringes.

Goaltending snowballing March struggles

When the puck isn’t going in, the puck needs to stay out of your net at a clip that matches to eke out wins. This has been a sore spot for the Red Wings as spring has neared. In 2024, the duo of Alex Lyon and James Reimer combined to for a 3.93 goals against average and .892 save percentage in March, with Lyon particularly struggling with a 0-7-2 mark, 4.03 goals against average and .884 save percentage in that stretch after entering the month with an 18-9-2 mark and .912 save percentage.

A year later, Detroit’s three-headed monster of Lyon (1-3, 3.30 GAA, .865 SV%), Cam Talbot (1-5, 3.26 GAA, .879 SV%) and trade deadline acquisition Petr Mrazek (2-2, 2.49 GAA, .902 SV%) combined for a 3.29 goals against average and .882 save percentage in March. Lyon was 11-6-1 with a .902 save percentage while Talbot held a .904 save percentage along with a 17-12-3 record. Again, for a team that has played around the playoff fringes, those types of drop-offs add up.

Help on the way?

Detroit split its first two games following the Olympic break, prevailing against Ottawa in overtime before dropping a 5-2 decision to Metropolitan-leading Carolina on Saturday. Their five-point lead above the playoff cut line in the wild card chase is one more than they held last year, but three less than the year before that. In each season, 91 points were required to earn the last playoff spot. In this regard, the Red Wings enter March closer than they have in the past three seasons with 74 points banked. With 22 games left, reaching adding 17 more points requires a paltry 8-14-1 record. If the playoff cutline goes higher this year to say 95 points, a 10-12-1 mark would do the trick.

There seems to be more buzz surrounding the Detroit Red Wings in terms of actively seeking trades to bolster their playoff prospects, with GM Steven Yzerman’s name connected with players such as Robert Thomas and Elias Pettersson who have produced gaudy offensive totals in the not-so-distant past. The team is also reportedly kicking tires with a handful of players to boost the blue line. Regardless of what move, if any, happens ahead of the trade deadline, it appears Yzerman is fully committed to helping this roster get over the hump and into this postseason.

Will this year be different?

A boost in the form of Thomas, Justin Faulk or any of the other names the Red Wings have been linked to would be helpful on its face to getting the team into the NHL playoffs for the first time since 2016. While snagging any of those would certainly give them a shot in the arm to clinch that postseason berth, they are designed more to give any playoff run more staying power.

To get into the playoffs, it boils back down to Detroit needing their top forwards, Dylan Larkin (54 points in 60 games) and Lucas Raymond (62 points in 58 games), to perform like stars as the season enters the stretch run. On the other end, the now Vezina-caliber play of John Gibson (2.57 goals against average, .905 save percentage) is giving Detroit more reason than before to be optimistic in weathering any storms should the offense dry up.

Through five months, the Detroit Red Wings are again poised to return to the playoffs and take advantage of a pretty wide open Eastern Conference should they do so. If the team’s goaltending holds and their stars perform over the final 22 games, the third time will finally be a charm following two near misses.