NHL Power Rankings: Red Wings Are In Trouble, Plus A New No. 1

Is it time to panic? Last week, the Detroit Red Wings were clinging onto the last spot in the wild card, sitting just one point ahead of the Columbus Blue Jackets and five ahead of the Ottawa Senators.

Ahead of Thursday's games, the Wings now sit outside the playoff picture, trailing the Jackets by three points and the Sens by one.

A month ago, we were sure the Yzerplan was finally bearing fruit and the nine-year playoff drought would end. Now it's looking like the Wings are going to be on the outside looking in yet again, this time a victim of their own poor stretch of play and a very, very competitive Eastern Conference.

It sets up a huge 13-game Thursday slate with two pivotal matchups: Blue Jackets at Canadiens and Penguins at Senators. If the Sens win, they'll pull three points ahead of the Wings, which don't play until Friday in Buffalo. If the Jackets win, they'll pull three ahead of the Pens; if the Habs win, they'll pull two ahead of the Bruins, which don't play until Saturday against the Wild. 

The East will be incredibly interesting to watch.

The West is totally another story, and the Pacific has been especially rough. Since Feb. 1, the five worst teams by points percentage are all from the Pacific, and aside from the Anaheim Ducks, it doesn't seem like any of them want to make the playoffs. 

In the most ironic twist, however, winning the Pacific also means setting up a first-round matchup against the Utah Mammoth, which will likely prove to be a tougher challenge than either the second or third seeds in the Pacific.

The Avalanche fell to the Stars on home ice but grabbed an early lead and outplayed them for most of the game, and I think everyone can agree a shootout is no way to decide which team is truly superior. After a 1-3-1 stumble, the Avs have won three straight. 

No team has been better than the Sabres lately. They're 12-1-2 in their past 15 and 23-6-4 since Jan. 1 – both are best in the league.

They escaped Colorado with a shootout win, but otherwise it's been a poor stretch where they haven't won a game in regulation since March 12 against the Oilers.

It's late March, and they still haven't settled on who their starting goalie will be going forward. 

Chalk up the post-Olympic losing streak to fatigue, but that's in the rearview mirror now with five wins and only one regulation loss in their past seven games.

They lost to the Avs in a shootout and beat the Stars in overtime after Vladimir Tarasenko was left wide open, but they're clearly the third-best team in the Central. They're 6-6-2 since the Olympic break.

For the longest time, Cole Caufield was the league's best goal-scorer who would one day pot 40 goals but never quite could. He's going for 50 this season.

Guess who's second-best in the league after the Sabres since Jan. 1? The Jackets are 19-3-4 with a .808 points percentage under Rick Bowness.

A big win against the Red Wings in Detroit and an overtime win against the Sabres in the second half of a back-to-back cap off a strong week for the Bruins. They've earned at least one point in all but three games so far in March.

The Sens need to win games and have other teams ahead lose, and that's exactly what's happening. A win against the Wings on Tuesday bumped up the Sens' playoff odds significantly. 

Tough competition facing the Canes and Avs twice each over a five-game stretch, but it's undoing what has been otherwise a fantastic season from the Pens. 

The Isles have the second-most wins in the Metro, mostly thanks to their overtime supremacy, but sit fourth in the division. It's likely they've given away too many points in those three-point games, and losing to the Sens and Habs doesn't help, either.  

The Flyers are 9-4-1 since the Olympic break, but that won't be enough. They're six points behind third in the Metro and five behind the last wild card.

The Ducks beat the Mammoth on Friday in Utah, 4-1, but it was much closer than that, with the Ducks scoring two empty-netters. It's a preview of a potential first-round matchup between two teams with elite talent, and the difference might just come down to goaltending.

Even if Dylan Larkin isn't 100 percent, there's no chance the captain would sit out as the Wings watch their playoff hopes slip. A bit unlucky that the East has been so tough this year, but losing divisional games to the Bruins and Habs, especially in regulation, can't happen if they want to end the nine-year playoff drought.

The Devils are still allowing goals at an alarming rate, but their scoring has picked up to help bail them out. Jack Hughes has the fourth-best points-per-game average since the Olympic break. 

Other than a stretch in late November, the Caps have had trouble finding their rhythm. They've scored more than two goals just once in their past seven games. 

Not only have they gone back to Tristan Jarry (and won!), they still couldn't beat a Panthers team that's seriously banged up. 

The Mammoth are in an interesting position where they may end up conceding home ice in the first round even if they're better than whichever team wins the Pacific. They lost to the Ducks and Oilers, but a win against the Knights gives a pretty good indication of who they'd rather face. 

With five straight wins, the Preds are right back in it, thanks to strong performances from Justus Annunen and Juuse Saros. Things don't look so dire as they once did, but don't rule out any significant off-season changes just yet.

The Knights are not good, and dare I posit that a coaching change might be in order after the season? Per SinBin.vegas: the Knights have trailed for 1,845 minutes, or 41.9 percent of the time, the most in the league.

Gloria! redux? Since March 1, the Blues are 8-1-2 with the second-best points percentage behind the Sabres. Mathematically possible, but still practically improbable. The Blues face the Kings and the Sharks twice in the coming week, and if they can sweep those games, the Blues might leapfrog them both to come within striking distance of a wild-card spot.

If you're not on the Jets' top line, you're not scoring. Over the past five seasons, only one (!) forward outside of Kyle Connor, Mark Scheifele and Gabriel Vilardi, only Cole Perfetti is averaging more than a half-point per game.

The Panthers may be losing a lot, but one thing they'll be sure to do is beat the Oilers. Minor wrinkle that hasn't gotten a lot of discussion: the Panthers' first-round pick is top-10 protected, and they will instead defer their 2027 pick to the Blackhawks as a result of the Spencer Knight trade.

Losers of four straight and 13 of 18 games since Feb. 1, the Kings are very quickly slipping out of the playoff picture, now sitting three points behind the Preds. Fun fact: Since Feb. 1, the five worst teams in the league by points percentage are all from the Pacific, with the Kings representing the best of the worst.

Losers of four straight and eight of their past 10, some of the games the Kraken are losing aren't even close. It's not a stretch to say the Kraken are the most mid and least interesting team in the league.

Losers of five straight and eight of their past 10 – are you seeing the pattern with the Pacific teams here – it's practically impossible to win when you're allowing more than five goals per game, and Macklin Celebrini is your only scoring threat.

All this talk about the Leafs finishing in the bottom five so they won't have to defer their first-round pick to the Bruins… there are no guarantees the Leafs won't be even worse next season, and there are no protections if the pick is deferred to 2027.

Impressive four-game winning streak, even if three of them came via shootout or overtime. Over the past month, they've actually been pretty average with a 6-6-1 record.

A pretty good debut for Anton Frondell, and though it was a nice gesture for Connor Bedard to let him take the opening faceoff in his NHL debut, setting him up against Bo Horvat feels like he's feeding him to the wolves. 

The second team to be eliminated from playoff contention, there is no other word to describe Monday's atrocious performance in Mika Zibanejad's 1,000th game as pitiful. They were better the following game, outshooting the Leafs 43-18, but lost for the sixth time in a row. 

How often does a major trade result in both teams losing? That J.T. Miller trade is going to be talked about for ages.

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