The Detroit Red Wings' playoff drought now comes with the indignity of having rounded a decade.
For players, there awaits a long offseason. For those running the organization, there awaits a monumental task.
The Wings were eliminated from the 2026 NHL playoffs on Saturday, April 11, with a 5-3 loss to the New Jersey Devils, completing another final month collapse.
That the Wings are simply not good enough as currently constructed was brought to the forefront as the team stumbled through another spring.
They were unable to withstand the pressure as games intensified and teams jockeyed for playoff-race positioning. The Wings were 12 points inside the picture on Jan. 24, five points inside when March began and two points out when April began.
When it mattered most, they looked lackadaisical. It is one thing to lose on skill, but what excuse is there for being outworked, again and again?
The Wings now have the longest active playoff drought in the NHL, 10 years of misery that has only grown even as they were supposed to emerge from the rebuild.
What went wrong for Red Wings
Coach Todd McLellan referred to it recently as the "million dollar question," namely why there wasn't more consistent urgency down the stretch. The flat starts at home against the Ottawa Senators and Philadelphia Flyers, sleepwalking through the second period at home against the Minnesota Wild – that's a searing indictment of the players above all. What excuse is there for not even seeming to try?
Andrew Copp lamented what he called "outside noise" creeping into the locker room after the Wings lost to the Wild, but that noise was coming from within the room. The Wings put themselves in position to be booed by fans at Little Caesars Arena as yet another disappointing spring unfolded.
March madness
The Wings aren't going to stop hearing questions about collapsing in the month of March until they stop doing it. They emerged with a losing record in each of the last three years in March:
- March 2026: (5-7-2, 12 points, fourth worst in the league).
- March 2025: (4-10-0, 8 points, second worst).
- March 2024: (3-9-2, 8 points, third worst).
The Wings tried to parry criticism of their performances in March this year by pointing to how the roster is different. But there's a great deal of overlap going back to 2024: Dylan Larkin, Moritz Seider, Lucas Raymond, Alex Debrincat, Patrick Kane, Copp, J.T. Compher, Michael Rasmussen, and Ben Chiarot - for that matter, David Perron, too, albeit he was a late-comer this year, acquired at the March 6 trade deadline and joining the lineup March 14.
The Wings had 14 games in March, and only three players produced in double digits: DeBrincat (20 points), Kane (14) and Seider (13). Larkin was limited to seven games (four points) because of a lower-body injury. For a second straight year, after playing in a tournament (this year, the Winter Olympics, a year ago, the 4 Nations Face-Off), Raymond looked subpar for stretches, with just nine points this March.
What's ahead for Steve Yzerman
General manager Steve Yzerman has tried to find a player to center the second line for years now, signing Copp in 2022 and Compher the next summer, when Copp hadn't played to expectations. Compher hasn't either.
Marco Kasper looked like he had grabbed the role the second half of last season, but struggled for much of the year in the role this season and lost the job.
Yzerman addressed the need for a veteran, right-shot top-four defenseman when he acquired Justin Faulk at the trade deadline.
Now, finding a proven, top-six center needs to top the priority list this offseason, and then, finding another scoring winger to play on the line with Larkin and Raymond. Emmitt Finnie is a hard-working young player, but he belongs on a third line, not a top line.
More jam
There are individual positions that need to be upgraded, but there's also intangibles: Chiefly, the Wings need more jam. They need grit, especially in the bottom six.
Rasmussen has not been as effective as expected for going on three years now.
Mason Appleton hasn't provided the mettle that was part of the reason he was signed last summer.
Can Carter Mazur help? Hard to tell with so little a sample size.
But the Wings need, as a group, to be harder to play against, to do a better job wearing down opponents, and to just play with more energy and aggression on a consistent basis.
What's ahead for players
Players will come in to clean out their lockers, and have a last go of availability with reporters. Some will be invited to play in the World Championship for their respective home nations – for USA, Larkin, DeBrincat, John Gibson; for Sweden, Raymond and Simon Edvinsson; for Germany, Seider; for Austria, Kasper.
There are also exit interviews with the coaching staff and with Yzerman.
Then another long offseason commences.
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