Make it nine straight seasons the Detroit Red Wings have failed to make the playoffs. 

The pressure on Red Wings GM Steve Yzerman is now as high as it’s been on him since he took the GM job in April 2019. There are clear areas of improvement he should address if he wants to lead this team to the post-season.

Here are three steps the Red Wings should look at in the off-season.

1. Improving The Defense

The Red Wings are tied for 20th in the NHL this season in goals against per game, with 3.15. That’s marginally better than they were last season, when they were 24th in the NHL at a 3.33 goals-against average. That’s also still nowhere near good enough for them to be a playoff team. It was the same story earlier in the season as well before they changed coaches.

The Wings have also allowed the ninth-most unblocked shot attempts against them at 5-on-5 this season and aren’t making it up at the other end of the ice, according to naturalstattrick.com.

Detroit has about $22.2 million in cap space to spend this coming summer before signing any pending RFAs and UFAs. They’ll have even more cap space if they buy out the final season of veteran Justin Holl’s contract.

So, who could they target to improve the ‘D’? There are a number of veteran blueliners who could help out both in the Red Wings’ defensive zone and in terms of offense. 

Winnipeg’s Neal Pionk is scheduled to be a UFA, as is Florida’s Aaron Ekblad, Columbus’ Ivan Provorov, Carolina’s Brent Burns and Dmitry Orlov and Los Angeles’ Vladislav Gavrikov. 

Many, if not all, of those D-men may not want to come to a rebuilding Detroit club, so Yzerman may have to overpay them to beat out other suitors. The team will also hope 22-year-old Simon Edvinsson builds on a promising season. But the Wings should be more aggressive this off-season anyway, because their back end just isn’t good enough.

2. Bringing In Proven Vets To Boost The Offense

In 2023-24, the Red Wings’ offense wasn’t all that bad with the NHL’s ninth-most goals-for per game of 3.35. This season, however, that number plummeted to 2.80 goals-for per game, which ranks them 22nd. 

Star right winger Lucas Raymond is the closest thing Detroit has to a point-per-game player, with 80 points in 81 games ahead of Thursday night’s finale. But other than Raymond, only two Red Wings players have more than 60 points, and only five Wings have 40 points or more.

You’re not going to win many games if you don’t have more players contributing a solid amount of offense. It raises the question of why Yzerman allowed David Perron – who posted nine goals in 42 games this year, a pace that would’ve matched the 17 goals he had for the Wings last season – to leave via free agency. They brought in Vladimir Tarasenko instead, considering he had 23 goals and 55 points last season, but he didn’t click in Detroit this year with 11 goals and 32 points in 79 games.

The Red Wings need all the help they can get on offense next season, so re-signing star right winger Patrick Kane, who has 21 goals and 58 points, seems like the bare minimum Yzerman can do. But Detroit needs much more help than that, and if Wings brass can’t deliver more offense, the results for the Red Wings will be similarly disappointing.

Red Wings And Bruins Could Be Stuck Behind The Pack Next Season As Well Flash back to September, when the Detroit Red Wings and Boston Bruins geared up to take a step forward. Six months later, they’re slipping.

3. Hitting A Home Run Via Free Agency Or In Trades

The Red Wings acquired Alex DeBrincat in a trade two years ago, and he had 67 points last year and 69 this season. He’s a young, high-end player who hasn’t really come close to the career-high 78 points he had with the Chicago Blackhawks in 2021-22.

Tarasenko hasn’t moved the needle, and Jeff Petry, who joined the Wings in 2023, only has eight points in 44 games this season.

It’s time Detroit acquires a first-rate talent, either via trades or on the free-agency market. They need more elite assets to match up to the best of their rival Atlantic Division teams. 

For that reason, the Red Wings should swing for the fences this summer. They could sign a top UFA forward, such as Panthers left winger Brad Marchand, Avalanche center Brock Nelson, Panthers center Sam Bennett, Jets left winger Nikolaj Ehlers or Maple Leafs center John Tavares. 

Again, the Wings may overpay to get some top talent to sign with them, but that’s the cost of doing business for a team that has consistently underwhelmed for almost a decade.

The other option for Yzerman is to acquire an elite player via trade, but that will almost certainly mean giving up significant draft capital. So far in his tenure, Yzerman has been reluctant to do too much of that, aside from moving the Bruins’ first-rounder in the DeBrincat trade. 

In some regards, that’s admirable on Yzerman’s part, because you want as many prospects in the system as possible. But sooner or later, you need a difference-maker and an experienced hand to get you into the playoffs, and that’s where the Red Wings are right now. 

Detroit can’t have another season of disappointment and excuses. If the team does fail to make the playoffs again next season, Yzerman’s tenure running the Wings could come to an end.

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