The Red Wings are improved and flawed. What does it mean for their outlook?

ANAHEIM, Calif. — Here are a few facts about the 2025-26 Detroit Red Wings, 12 games into their season.

At 8-4, the Red Wings are tied for first in the Atlantic Division, albeit with one more game played than the Montreal Canadiens. They have a top-10 power play and a top-10 penalty kill. And they entered Friday night’s game against the Anaheim Ducks with a positive expected goals share at 5-on-5 — something they haven’t done over a full season in a decade.

They are, by almost any measure, improved from the team they were last year — and from the team they’ve been through their nine-year playoff drought. Even though it’s early, it’s fair to say they have a real chance to break that drought this year.

However, here are some other things about them.

They have had a concerning habit of giving up rush chances and getting burned by them. They have had a few too many starts that have been slow or sloppy. And Friday in Anaheim, that all showed up in a 5-2 loss to the Ducks.

So they’re a flawed team, too.

And here’s the thing you should really know: That’s true of nearly every NHL team this season, with very few looking like juggernauts through October.

Vegas, Colorado and Carolina do, but that was expected. What’s more notable is just how open, and even, the rest of the picture looks right now, as the calendar turns to November. The Atlantic alone has the Canadiens and Red Wings up top at 16 points each, and then the rest of the division between 11 and 13 points — all of them above .500. And the Metropolitan division doesn’t have a single team below .500.

Part of that is the early-season small sample, to be sure. Some teams will heat up, and others will fall off, but not all of them. A few weeks in, this looks like a season that will be defined by parity.

So where does that leave these improved, flawed Red Wings? In a pretty good place, having banked some early points against top competition, and with plenty of room for more improvement. At least, as long as they’re able to actually make some progress, which, to their credit, they’ve shown an ability to do thus far.

“We’re trying to figure things out,” head coach Todd McLellan said. “We’re going to have some good days. We’re going to have bad stretches. We’re going to need practice time. We’re going to need rest. Last time I checked, we’re a team that’s just trying to really work hard to get into the playoffs, so we’ve got a lot of learning lessons.”

Much of that is due to the number of young players the Red Wings are carrying. Detroit’s 20-year-old rookies — forward Emmitt Finnie and defenseman Axel Sandin-Pellikka — have gotten most of the attention in that regard, but they’re far from the only young players on the roster. Center Marco Kasper is 21. Defenseman Simon Edvinsson is 22. Blueliner Albert Johansson is 24, but still has only 73 NHL games to his name. Winger Elmer Söderblom, also 24, has even fewer (54).

Red Wings defenseman Simon Edvinsson, one of Detroit’s younger players, pushes Ducks defenseman Olen Zellweger into the net. (Kiyoshi Mio / Imagn Images)

It’s a young team, and at times they’ve looked that way. Kasper — off a two-goal performance in a wild victory in Los Angeles one night earlier — had one such play Friday, forcing a pass on an odd-man rush that led to a rush (and goal) the other way. Edvinsson took an early third-period penalty that allowed the Ducks to turn a 3-2 lead into a much tougher 4-2 game.

And on a night like Friday, when a quiet locker room clears out quickly on the heels of a frustrating loss, those moments are certainly the focus.

“Overall, very disappointing,” defenseman Moritz Seider said of the showing against the Ducks. “I think we’ve got to come up with a better game plan, especially for such a meaningful game, first and foremost for (goaltender John Gibson, who was playing in Anaheim for the first time since being traded to Detroit this summer). Unacceptable to kind of let him hang in there sometimes. And then obviously frustration takes over, you get away from your game a little bit.”

“I think we gave ourselves a lot of trouble tonight,” winger Lucas Raymond added. “I think it was more so a lot of self-inflicted stuff out there for us, and yeah, not good enough.”

That’s all true, of course. The Red Wings gave up another shorthanded goal, sent the Ducks to the power play five times and didn’t make the most of their chances on a night where there was plenty of action in both directions. It’s been true on other nights this season, too, and you can bet it’ll be true in more to come. If it shows up too often, it could start to feel like a long year.

Yet, it’s just as notable that these 8-4 Red Wings still have a lot more in them — that for as much as their flaws are real, they have strengths that have yet to be fully tapped into, and players whose contributions can still go way up.

Take Raymond, for example. Detroit’s leading scorer from last season had a goal and an assist Friday, bringing his season total to 11 points in 10 games. And yet, he hasn’t looked his best since he missed time with an injury in the second week of the season. Or take Edvinsson and Kasper, who have been up and down after being such breakout stories in their first full seasons a year ago. A key piece of their top six and power play, Patrick Kane, hasn’t played in two full weeks.

On one hand, Detroit would surely love to be getting more from those players — and to have them all healthy. On the other, might this mean the Red Wings have something to look forward to when those players round into form? It’s a lot to chew on.

“We’re a mixed bag at this point,” McLellan said. “But we have opportunity for growth and we’re looking forward to getting better.”

That point is hard to argue. The Red Wings were certainly not at their best Friday, even though they skated hard and maintained some of their calling cards (like their newly-improved penalty kill). They saw familiar issues pop up with their decision-making, and yet they also had a real chance to win the game entering the third period. The Red Wings also have a chance to secure a winning road trip Sunday in San Jose.

However, while Detroit does at times feel like a team of contrasts, that doesn’t mean the Red Wings are particularly hard to figure out.

They’ve gotten a couple of tight games to go their way — like Cam Talbot’s early-season steal in Toronto, and a second-chance victory in Los Angeles Thursday — but if you check under the hood, their 8-4 record doesn’t look undeserved. They’ve mostly earned what they’ve gotten, on the good nights and on the bad.

Improved? No question. Flawed? Absolutely.

And 12 games into the season, they are in a good place in the standings, which leaves the Red Wings with two things: a great opportunity ahead of them, and a lot of work to do.