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Red Wings have big decisions to make as playoff drought extends
Detroit Red Wings center Emmitt Finnie (58) receives congratulations from teammates after scoring in the third period against the New Jersey Devils at Little Caesars Arena. Rick Osentoski-Imagn Images

Red Wings have big decisions to make as playoff drought reaches 10 years

By Adam Gretz  |  Last updated Apr 11, 2026 9:56 PM ET

Between the 1990-91 and 2015-16 seasons, the Detroit Red Wings were the model NHL franchise. They made the playoffs 25 years in a row, reached six Stanley Cup Finals and won four of them. They were consistent, steady, and at times dominant. Since that streak ended, however, the Red Wings have become the exact opposite franchise.

With their 5-3 loss to the New Jersey Devils on Saturday, they were officially eliminated from playoff contention for the 2025-26 season, meaning their playoff drought is now at 10 consecutive seasons, which now sits as the longest active playoff drought in the NHL.

They got here with yet another late-season collapse, and all of it should give the organization some big questions to answer going into the offseason. 

Red Wings have a lot of things to evaluate as playoff drought reaches 10 years

The Red Wings have had some bad late-season meltdowns in recent years, but this season's might be the worst of them all.

Back on Jan. 25, the Red Wings had the second-best record in the NHL's Eastern Conference and had a 15-point cushion over the pack of non-playoff teams in the conference. That sort of cushion should be nearly impossible to lose that late in the season. But thanks to a 9-14-5 record since then, they managed to do it. 

Even worse, they are just the second team in NHL history to have at least 69 points through the first 53 games of a season and miss the playoffs, joining the 1969-70 Montreal Canadiens.

Combined with the late-season meltdowns of the past few years, as well as the overall decade of losing, the Red Wings have to at least consider some sort of meaningful change.

Perhaps even with general manager Steve Yzerman. This is now his mess. 

Yzerman has been overseeing the organization for seven of those seasons, and while he was inheriting an old, bad team with no farm system and a bad salary cap situation, he has had plenty of time to get them back into the playoffs. There should be more progress here and a better product on the ice. It should not still be this bad. 

The Red Wings have what should be a great core on paper with defenseman Moritz Seider and forwards Dylan Larkin, Lucas Raymond and Alex DeBrincat, but the rest of the roster around them is so sub-par that it is completely neutralizing the positives the core group brings. They have no scoring depth, no defensive depth beyond Seider, and have done a mostly terrible job with their NHL scouting in recent years. Even worse, a lot of their prospects have either regressed or not panned out as hoped. 

Yzerman is a legend in Detroit for his days as a player, and it is understandable that the organization wants to give him an extended leash to rebuild the team as an executive. But these results are not good enough after this much time, and yet another late-season meltdown, with this one being the worst of them all, should have everybody asking big questions about what comes next and who is leading it.

Adam Gretz

Adam Gretz is a freelance writer based in Pittsburgh. He covers the NHL, NFL, MLB and NBA. Baseball is his favorite sport -- he is nearly halfway through his goal of seeing a game in every MLB ballpark. Catch him on X @AGretz

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