Detroit Red Wings: Tyler Bertuzzi’s scoring was greatly missed in 2020-21

The Detroit Red Wings are closing in on the end of their season, and winger Tyler Bertuzzi has yet to return from his “day-to-day” injury that has spiraled a bit out of control. In reality, the day-to-day injury appeared to be a bigger issue that would keep him out for the long term.

The last time that Bertuzzi suited up for the Detroit Red Wings was January 30th, 2021, and he was off to a good start. He turned the page from 2019-20 and continued his burst of production early on in 2020-21.

The Red Wings are tumbling their dumpster fire of a team through a rebuild, and while they did take a step “forward” in 2020-21, it was a baby step at most. Without Bertuzzi in the lineup, after the injury shut things down, they missed out on a good chunk of production.

In 2019-20, Bertuzzi trailed newly named captain Dylan Larkin for the team lead in points by five. He had a stronghold on the second spot, though with the recently traded Anthony Mantha being at 38 points on the season, which was 10 behind Bertuzzi.

The Detroit Red Wings missed out on Tyler Bertuzzi’s production in 2020-21 due to his absence.

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Bertuzzi’s injury has turned out to be much more serious than was originally thought, meaning the Red Wings were without one of their top scorers.

As was touched on above, the Red Wings got a good amount of offense from Bertuzzi in 2019-20.

Two seasons ago, Bertuzzi logged 71 games where he had 21 goals and 27 assists for 48 total points on the season and was the Red Wings all-star representative on the season. Before he was injured, Bertuzzi was off to a great start.

Bertuzzi logged nine games for the Red Wings in the 2020-21 season, where he had five goals and two assists.

He was off to a great start, but the injury put any hope of another great season to bed. However, he was expected to return, but that just has not happened.

It seems that Bertuzzi’s injury is a back injury that continues to linger and be problematic. Red Wings fans are no stranger to serious back injuries. Former captain Henrik Zetterberg had his own issues with back injuries that fans will remember shutting down his career.

I know I had originally compared Bertuzzi’s injury to Johan Franzen’s as the worst-case scenario. Since then, I found that Bertuzzi’s injury is actually a back injury. But then I started thinking back to Zetterberg’s career being ended due to his back issues, and that makes things worrisome.

Hopefully, for Bertuzzi, the time off the ice this offseason will allow him to get back on the ice with ease him back into things. Bertuzzi’s production was missed this season, and if it bleeds into next year, there could be a much bigger issue, and we could be dealing with a Zetterberg-like issue once again.

Best of luck to Tyler Bertuzzi as he looks to get back on the ice and be good to go for 2021-22 after his season was cut short due to the lingering and continued back injury.