FanDuel Sportsbook has the Detroit Red Wings at +220 to qualify for the playoffs. That’s an implied probability of 31.3%. It’s not hard to find folks who don’t believe Detroit’s odds are even that good.

Many scenarios would have to go right for Detroit to end its nine-year playoff drought. You can start with the reality that the Red Wings need to score more even-strength goals in 2025-26. The Red Wings were tied for 27th last season with 143 five-on-five goals. That’s 1.74 per game. Detroit needs to be above two goals per game five-on-five to be a playoff factor.

The best-case scenario for Detroit would be a strong season by new goalie John Gibson (.910 save percentage or better), an offense in the top 15, a power play as good as last season and vastly improved penalty killing.

But the Red Wings probably need to worry about the worst-case scenarios more than they can hope for the best-case scenarios. Here are the worst-case scenarios to qualifying for the playoffs:

1. One of the Big Three Suffers Long-term Injury

The Red Wings don’t have depth that measures up to the NHL’s top teams, or even teams in their own Atlantic Division. The loss Moritz Seider, Lucas Raymond or Dylan Larkin for any length of time would have devastating consequences on the team’s ability to compete.

2. Gibson Doesn’t Deliver

The Red Wings didn’t land the big-name offensive player they hoped to find in the free agent marketplace. And they didn’t get a chance to bid on Aaron Ekblad because he took less to stay in Florida. GM Steve Yzerman undoubtedly counting on Gibson to be the goalie he was early in his career, maybe like he was in the four-season run from 2015-16 t0 2018-19 when he posted save percentages of .920, .924, .926 and .924. It would be disastrous if was the sub-.900 goalie he was in 2022-23 and 2023-24.

3.  Power Play Drops Off

The Red Wings finished fourth in the NHL last season with a 27% power play. Do we honestly believe they can match that this season? Power plays are fickle beasts. They can go from ferocious to tame almost overnight. They were ninth in 2023-24 (23%) and 17th in 2021-22 (21.1%). If the Red Wings cannot match last season’s efficiency, and don’t improve their five-on-five scoring, their ability to compete

4. Penalty Kill Doesn’t Improve

The Red Wings were historically bad killing penalties last season. They only thwarted 70.1%. Only late season improvement prevented their efficiency from being below 70%. It wasn’t just the numbers. It always felt like they were going to give up a goal, and often it came quickly in the power play. It’s forgotten now that Bob Boughner came to Detroit with a reputation of being a quality penalty killing coach and he just couldn’t get this Detroit group organized on the kill.

5. ASP Needs a Year in Grand Rapids

Axel Sandin Pellikka has a chance to be a special puck-moving defenseman. The outside hope is he makes the team in training camp, but the likely scenario is he joins the Griffins for 25 games. But it may turn out he needs a full season. That would certainly be discouraging for the fan base. There’s excitement over this youngster.  They need some hope.