{"id":557384,"date":"2026-04-21T17:06:43","date_gmt":"2026-04-21T17:06:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/557384\/"},"modified":"2026-04-21T17:06:43","modified_gmt":"2026-04-21T17:06:43","slug":"red-wings-season-doomed-by-1-major-factor-and-its-not-what-everyone-thinks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/557384\/","title":{"rendered":"Red Wings season doomed by 1 major factor, and it\u2019s not what everyone thinks"},"content":{"rendered":"

There\u2019s a lot of chatter surrounding the Detroit Red Wings’ latest epic collapse. By now, just about every possible theory has been posited<\/a>. Some have even come to think there\u2019s some kind of voodoo curse on the organization.<\/p>\n

But conspiracy theories aside, there is one significant but overlooked factor that helped derail the Red Wings\u2019 season. Now, we\u2019re not saying it\u2019s the only one. But it\u2019s one that played a major role.<\/p>\n

That factor was this season\u2019s uber-compressed schedule.<\/p>\n

The reason for the compressed schedule was the 2026 Winter Olympics. Since the NHL shut down the season for three weeks, the bulk of games that would have been played in that span had to get crammed into a shorter window.<\/p>\n

And that compressed schedule took its toll on every team in the league. This season, there was an abnormal number of injuries for every club. It seems as though every team in the league was dealing with a mountain of wounded warriors.<\/p>\n

While that\u2019s par for the course in a regular NHL season, the 2025-26 campaign showed a much higher rate than normal.<\/p>\n

The Red Wings, for their part, were \u201crunning on fumes,\u201d as insider Elliotte Friedman put it. To make matters worse, Detroit\u2019s best players, Dylan Larkin, Moritz Seider and Lucas Raymond<\/a> didn\u2019t get to enjoy the time off afforded by the Olympic break. In Larkin\u2019s case, he went the full distance with Team USA en route to the gold-medal performance.<\/p>\n

Red Wings\u2019 last two March collapses happened during compressed seasons<\/p>\n

Last year was another compressed season. The NHL shut down in the middle of February for the 4 Nations Face-Off. Yes, the tourney was a smashing success, but it also forced the league to cram games.<\/p>\n

Of course, not every player from every team plays in these tournaments. But the problem lies in the shortened rest between games. That\u2019s when fatigue and injuries begin to pile up. Goalies, in particular, often have to bear the brunt of the increased workload.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a hole in this entire conversation that needs to be addressed. Next season will see a more traditional schedule despite the increase to 84 games. The league will compensate for the two additional regular-season games by cutting down on the number of preseason contests.<\/p>\n

That said, if the Red Wings don\u2019t fade down the stretch, then the theory would prove correct. A traditional schedule would allow the Wings to better manage their workload and avoid another collapse.<\/p>\n

But if the Red Wings can\u2019t sustain the effort seen earlier in the season, then it would be unequivocal that the team\u2019s roster construction needs serious consideration<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Based on that assumption, it\u2019s unlikely the Red Wings will overhaul their roster. They\u2019ll look at the team, focus on adding depth, and then hope that a less-packed schedule would allow the club to remain competitive from September to April.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s see if the club proves this season\u2019s outcome was the NHL\u2019s fault, not theirs.<\/p>\n

\"\"Add us as a preferred source on GoogleFollow<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There\u2019s a lot of chatter surrounding the Detroit Red Wings’ latest epic collapse. By now, just about every…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":557385,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5101],"tags":[599,93,5137,5,4,3358,5138],"class_list":{"0":"post-557384","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-detroit-red-wings","8":"tag-detroit","9":"tag-detroit-red-wings","10":"tag-detroitredwings","11":"tag-hockey","12":"tag-nhl","13":"tag-red-wings","14":"tag-redwings"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116443797031613500","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/557384","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=557384"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/557384\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/557385"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=557384"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=557384"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=557384"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}