After finishing 7th in the Atlantic Division in 2016, the Detroit Red Wings ended their streak of making the playoffs for 25 consecutive years–a period during which they won three Stanley Cup championships–and began what has become a six-year playoff drought. 

Now the “Yzerplan” of Red Wings, legend and current General Manager Steve Yzerman, is about to take the NHL by storm. Fans are eager for the team to play its first game of the new season on Sept. 27 at 7 p.m. 

Detroit finished 6th in the Atlantic last year with a 32-40-10 record, totaling 74 points. This was a drastic improvement from the 48 total points they finished with in the prior season. This was not enough for Yzerman because he decided to not resign Head Coach Jeff Blashill in order to make Tampa Bay Lightning Assistant Coach Derek Lalonde his new head coach. 

After officially hiring Lalonde on June 30, Yzerman continued his tradition of drafting across the pond, selecting Austrian forward Marco Kasper with the 8th overall pick. Yzerman then made a trade for St. Louis Blues goalie Ville Husso, who finished the 2021-2022 season with a .919 save percentage. 

Then came free agency. Yzerman brought Ann Arbor native Andrew Copp back home to Michigan with a 5 year deal. Copp finished with a career high of 53 points last season with the New York Rangers and the Winnipeg Jets. He will reunite with his former college teammate from the University of Michigan, Dylan Larkin. 

In addition to Copp, the Red Wings signed forwards David Perron and Dominik Kubalik to 2 year deals, and brought in defensemen Ben Chiarot and former first round pick Olli Määttä. 

Detroit fans will most likely see Larkin, Lucas Raymond, and Tyler Bertuzzi as the starting forward line, just like last season. The three combined for 188 points total last season. Raymond, who finished fourth in voting for the Calder Trophy, was the Red Wings’ 2020 first round pick, and joined Yzerman in being the only two players in Red Wing history to score a hat trick as teenagers. 

Left wing Jakub Vrána, who missed most of last season due to a shoulder injury, is expected to play alongside Copp and Perron on the second line. Kubalik is expected to join forwards Pius Suter and Filip Zadina on the third line, while Adam Erne, Michael Rasmussen, and Oskar Sundqvist round out the bottom line.

On defense, the Red Wings will get to watch Calder Trophy winner Moritz Seider play in his second full season. Seider led all NHL defenseman with 43 assists and 50 total points last season, and was the first Red Wings player to win the Calder trophy since the 1960s. 

Seider is joined by Chiarot and Määttä, as well as the Red Wings first pick in the 2021 draft, Simon Edvinsson. Filip Hronek and Gustav Lindström will round out the defense for the Red Wings this season. 

Sharing the net with Husso will be Alex Nedeljkovic, who started the majority of games for the Red Wings last season, and finished with a .901 save percentage. 

The veteran ability of Copp, Larkin, and Chiarot, combined with the youthful energy of Seider, Edvinsson, Raymond, and possibly Kasper, are exactly what Detroit fans were hoping for when Yzerman was announced as the team’s General Manager in 2019. This year, I believe it is safe to say that we will see playoff hockey in Hockeytown this season.