So far in 2024-25, Dylan Larkin has 11 goals for the Detroit Red Wings, and there’s now a more than decent chance he’ll end up with at least 40 this season. But with the team struggling so much to find goals, who else wanted to step up and play the role of hero?
For a while, it looked like nobody was interested, and it added to the narrative of how bad this team was. But over the previous five games, two players have jumped out. The first is our points leader, Lucas Raymond. Having been a prominent playmaker in Hockeytown all season, Raymond has since scored twice in the previous four games, including one in Thursday night’s win over the New York Islanders.
While he has just three goals this season and a meager 8.6 shooting percentage, if Raymond finds his groove, watch out because Dylan Larkin will officially have some help he can count on.
Of course, I don’t want to judge anything over the last four games. But let’s not forget about Raymond’s 2023-24 season, when he found the net 31 times and ended the year with a 19.0 shooting percentage. That said, maybe Raymond just had a tough time in the early going, so if that’s the case, it’s highly likely he’ll lead the team in points overall.
Red Wings could finally be giving Dylan Larkin help on the goal-scoring front
Player No. 2 is Alex DeBrincat, who has 17 points in 19 games this season, plus eight goals and a healthy 17.8 shooting percentage. If anyone was going to give Larkin help this season, DeBrincat was my top pick. And, like Raymond, he’s been making his presence known with a pair of goals in the last five games.
While two goals for both DeBrincat and Raymond over their respective last five contests don’t seem like a lot, I implore you to conduct some basic math. Averaging two goals per five contests means they’re scoring in 40 percent of their matchups, or four in every 10 games, eight in every 20, 16 in every 40, and so on.
Add in the fact that DeBrincat, also like Raymond, is doing his part adding a sound number of assists, and you can see just how many points each of these two players will end up with if they keep finding the net at their recent rate. It won’t completely turn around the Red Wings scoring woes, but it will make them look far more respectable than they’ve been at the moment.