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NHL - These are five biggest games left in the Red Wings regular season

darren cooper
By:
Darren Cooper
05/02/2024/
NHL
Detroit Red Wings Sport News

Highlights

  • Entering the NHL All-Star break, the Red Wings were holding on to the eighth and final spot in the Eastern Conference playoffs.
  • Detroit hasn’t made the NHL playoffs since 2016.
  • The Red Wings have 32 regular season games left, and these are the five to watch as they try to break their playoff drought.

Through a scheduling quirk, the Red Wings have an extra-long All-Star break. 

Detroit will have had a full 10 days off before hosting Vancouver at Little Caesars Arena on Saturday. Then they make their annual West Coast/Western Canada run playing Edmonton, Vancouver, Calgary and Seattle.

There’s a buzz at American sportsbooks on the Red Wings, who haven’t made the playoffs since 2016 and are holding on to the final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference. FanDuel has odds on the Wings to win the Atlantic Division and make the playoffs and BetMGM will have puck lines and totals on every game.

Detroit has 32 games left in the regular season. These are the five biggest to determine their fate.

Feb. 25 at Chicago Blackhawks 

Well, this one may not really matter in the playoff standings, but there will be some hype when the Red Wings come to Chicago because it will be current Red Wing Patrick Kane’s first game against his old franchise.

Kane is a Chicago legend, part of three Cup winning teams there. The Blackhawks have the worst record in the NHL now, and lost star rookie Connor Bedard to a broken jaw. He may be back in time for this one.

Feb. 29 vs. New York Islanders 

Detroit is six points clear of the ninth-place team in the East, which is the Islanders. Detroit is 1-1 against New York this season, but the Islanders are showing they want to go for it. They fired coach Lane Lambert and brought in Patrick Roy before the All-Star break. Roy needs to fix a goalie situation that’s allowed 3.1 goals a game.

March 9 at Vegas Golden Knights 

The Red Wings get a chance to test themselves against the defending Stanley Cup champs. Vegas isn’t quite the same team they were in 2023, but are still formidable with a balanced attack led by Mark Stone and Jack Eichel….remember how hot they got in the playoffs last year?

April 1 at Tampa Bay Lightning 

If the seeds hold, Detroit would face Boston in the first round of the playoffs. But they can still get to the three seed in the division, currently held by Tampa, they’re only a point behind.

The Lightning entered the All-Star break having won eight of nine games - with that only loss coming to the Wings. Nikita Kucherov leads the NHL with 85 points and 52 assists.

April 13 at Toronto Maple Leafs 

Game 80 on the Wings schedule is a doozy. The Leafs and the Red Wings are tied at 58 points at the break, but Detroit has played three fewer games. Toronto finally broke their playoff curse, winning a series for the first time since 2004 last year, but haven’t won a Cup since 1967.

This game has the potential to be huge for both teams’ playoff chances or playoff seeds. No one really probably wants to play Boston in the first round.

darren cooper

Born and raised in Louisiana, Darren Cooper has a fond appreciation for bayous, Mardi Gras beads and the sports betting industry. Darren has worked for multiple print and online publications since 1998, primarily as a sports columnist in the Northeast. He’s covered a Super Bowl (it was a blowout), the World Series (same) and the NBA Draft (man, those guys are tall). For the last few years he’s dug deep into the sports gambling industry as it exploded across America, learning how the legal sausage is made and how while all the sportsbooks look the same, they all have different identities and styles. He’s learned to always bet within his means -- and take the under. When not in front of his computer creating, Darren spends time with his three boys. He runs, reads and is always looking for the next big thing to write about.