Bold Predictions for the Detroit Red Wings’ 2026-27 Season

With the Detroit Red Wings’ season kicking off Friday in a bout against the New York Rangers, it’s time to plant a few flags in the ground and take a stab at predicting the coming Red Wings season. Detroit is in a rough spot right now with Dylan Larkin wanting out and Simon Edvinsson back in Sweden to wait out his contract stalemate, so I want to be sure these predictions are bold.

I’ll start with the most average of the predictions and get more and more bold as I go along so prepare to disagree. Ground rules, if I get something right, I get to brag about it, but if I get something wrong we pretend it never happened. Deal? Thanks.

Onto the predictions!

Detroit Finishes Last in the Atlantic Division

This might be the most luke-warm take here, with Detroit only finishing sixth in the Atlantic division last season. Last year they beat out the Florida Panthers by eight points and the Toronto Maple Leafs by 14 points, with a grand total of 92 themselves. 

The Florida Panthers’ down season was largely caused by the injury to captain Sasha Barkov, as well as plenty of other untimely injuries throughout the year. They just held the reigned Stanley Cup champion Carolina Hurricanes to zero goals in the season-opener, so it looks like the Panthers are back, and that’s even before mentioning the addition of Brady Tkachuk in the offseason.

The Toronto Maple Leafs are less of a sure thing to bounce right back, though the additions of Kirill Marchenko and Gavin McKenna raise the team’s ultimate ceiling this year. The Darren Raddysh contract is certainly bold long-term, but it could pay off very well over the next two or three years. 

Ultimately, Detroit is going to help the other teams in the Atlantic by regressing a bit this year. With Larkin out (whether due to injury or a trade), Detroit’s top-six centers are Andrew Copp and JT Compher. That should tell you how dire their situation is. Lucas Raymond and Alex DeBrincat are both excellent top-six wingers capable of scoring 80+ points this year, and Moritz Seider is a Norris-caliber defender, but there is simply not enough talent on this roster to compete in this year’s juggernaut Atlantic division.  

Anton Johansson Leapfrogs ASP

With Moritz Seider standing tall as Detroit’s top defender, and the team adding Justin Faulk at last year’s trade deadline, Axel Sandin Pellikka’s (ASP) ice time was reduced significantly. That was the right call for the team’s success, but the expectation this summer was that ASP would come in ready to be on the right side of Detroit’s third d-pairing full time right out of the gate. 

That hasn’t exactly gone to plan with the 6-foot-4 Anton Johansson impressing the team (and league) with his play at training camp and in the preseason. Johansson was a fourth round selection of Detroit back in the 2022 Draft who has been playing in Sweden until last spring when he signed a contract and joined the Grand Rapids Griffins to finish the season.

Johansson’s size certainly gives the team a different dimension when compared to ASP, and while his ultimate offensive potential isn’t as high, my prediction here is that he starts more games in Detroit than ASP this season, likely playing bigger minutes along the way.

Simon Edvinsson’s Contract Dispute Goes the Distance

December 1 is the deadline for a restricted free agent’s contract to be signed and apply to the current season. If a deal is struck on the second, then Edvinsson would be sitting out the rest of the year. 

With Edvinsson returning to Sweden and the Red Wings’ front office still seemingly in disarray, I don’t expect this deal will materialize any time soon. 

My prediction is that both sides will use this deadline for leverage, playing a high stakes game of chicken to see who breaks first. I think that Edvinsson will sign an extension with Detroit in the final days of November, depriving the team of their second best defender for the first two months of the season.

DeBrincat Scores 300th Goal Against Chicago

Alex DeBrincat sits at 294 career goals to begin this season, with the majority of those (160 to be exact) coming in his five seasons with the Chicago Blackhawks. After bursting onto the scene as a young sniper next to Patrick Kane, DeBrincat’s goalscoring slowed down a bit during his stop in Ottawa with the Senators as well as in his first year with the Red Wings.

However, in the past two seasons he has scored a combined 80 goals and had the first 40-goal season for Detroit in over a decade. With his frequent running mate Kane returning to the Blackhawks in the offseason, it’s only right that DeBrincat will score his 300th career goal on October 29th when the Red Wings host Chicago at Little Caesars Arena, what will be his sixth goal of the season in the team’s 13th game.

Michael Brandsegg-Nygård Has 20 Goals and 200 Hits

Michael Brandsegg-Nygård (MBN) had a wildly unlucky stint in the NHL last season, but he looks ready to put that behind him. After a strong showing in the AHL over the remainder of the 2025-26 season, MBN has looked excellent through training camp and the preseason, hitting everything that moves and shooting the puck incredibly well.

My prediction is that MBN will score at least 20 goals and have at least 200 hits in the 2026-27 season. There were only six players who reached those marks last year in the NHL, including guys like Kiefer Sherwood, Will Cuylle, and Dylan Cozens. I think that would be solid company for a young player who projects as a run-and-gun, highly engaged sharpshooter.

Dylan Larkin Remains in Detroit Until Deadline

Despite his best efforts, Dylan Larkin is still a member of the Detroit Red Wings. He has thus far avoided the shower of boos that will greet him every time he steps on the ice in Little Caesars Arena, but his upper-body injury is expected to only keep him out of the first two games of the 2026-27 season.

Larkin is going to be motivated to play his best hockey to start the year to help advertise himself to potential trade partners, but I don’t think this will be solved particularly soon. Detroit hasn’t exactly been batting a thousand in the front office lately, and I think they know that this is a deal they absolutely need to do well in.

Your (former) captain asked out, leaving the team without a top-line center, and now you’re forced to deal him to a destination of his choosing. There’s no way for Detroit to claw back some leverage in this deal, not with the way the vultures have been circling since Larkin got a taste of winning hockey at the Milan Olympics. I predict that Detroit is going to be worn down throughout the season until they finally agree to a futures-based deal at the trade deadline, setting the team on a more realistic contending trajectory.