Red Wings Ranked Least Likely East Team to Win Stanley Cup

The NHL Playoffs are as wide open as any playoffs in professional sports but the Detroit Red Wings are still long shots to make some noise.

It’s hard to imagine that whether or not it’s a good thing for a team to make the playoffs can be up for debate but those discussions were had among Detroit sports fans concerning the Detroit Red Wings.

On one hand there was a playoff streak to extend and the NHL playoffs have seen plenty of poorly seeded teams go on a run. Get in and anything can happen, some say.

On the other hand is the feeling that the Red Wings are on a rut and something as drastic as seeing one of professional sports’ longest playoff streaks coming to an end might just be the wake up call necessary to see some meaningful and necessary moves made in the offseason.

In the end, the Red Wings qualified by finishing third in the Atlantic Division to set up a playoff rematch against the Tampa Bay Lightning.

Jimmy Hascup of USA Today ranked all NHL playoff qualifiers and the Red Wings checked in much closer to the bottom than the top. In fact, Hascup ranked on the Minnesota Wild as less likely than the Red Wings to raise the Stanley Cup this season. He explains:

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"The Red Wings nearly saw their playoff streak end at 24 seasons. But they’re back, even if they’re more of a bubble team than a legitimate contender. This is a low-event team that excels at limiting scoring chances, yet still is 17th in goals against. It’s not like Jimmy Howard has been great; he’s just been better than the struggling Petr Mrazek. Henrik Zetterberg and Pavel Datsyuk have passed their peak and Dylan Larkin, at 21, can’t be counted on to carry the offense. With Datsyuk hinting that it could be his last year in the NHL, rallying around him might be their only chance."

The ranking may seem harsh but it is hard to argue with considering the Red Wings’ inconsistencies on defense and their struggle to score goals for much of the season.

Of course, that’s not to say that the first round series against the Lightning won’t be competitive or that the Red Wings can’t even win it to advance. But it is hard to see this group making a cup run after seeing what they were over the course of the regular season.

Next: Red Wings Should Start Mrazek Against Lightning

It would have been a different situation if Petr Mrazek was playing as well as he was earlier in the year but that unfortunately is not the case.

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Detroit Red Wings Ranked Least Likely Eastern Conference Playoff Team to Win Stanley Cup

By Zac Snyder | Apr 13, 2016

The NHL Playoffs are as wide open as any playoffs in professional sports but the Detroit Red Wings are still long shots to make some noise.