Detroit Red Wings: Michael Rasmussen still struggling to get going

The Detroit Red Wings started the 2021-22 season and saw some of their younger players get going. It’s still early in the season, but Michael Rasmussen has not been one of those players who has really impressed.

Coming into the 2021-22 season, the hope was that Detroit Red Wings forward Michael Rasmussen could really get things going and elevate his play. Instead, he has looked more like a bottom-six forward and struggled to break out as the team would have hoped.

This is his third season logging games in the NHL with the Red Wings, but he has not lived up to the potential that many would have expected from the former first-round pick. This offseason, the 22-year-old signed a three-year extension that keeps him in Detroit through the 2023-24 season.

It has not been the smoothest transition for Rasmussen, but he has been able to show flashes of what he could be. The issue is sustaining that level of play and being a productive member of the Red Wings offense.

Detroit Red Wings forward Michael Rasmussen has not looked great so far.

The Red Wings believe Rasmussen can do a lot for this offense, and he has not shown it so far. Early on in the season, Rasmussen has logged 14 games where he had six assists and has really not shown up much throughout the beginning of the season.

Rasmussen has not found his way into the team’s top-six consistently and has areas of his game that he truly needs to fine-tune and work on. The Red Wings need to be expecting more from Rasmussen, and it does surprise me that Rasmussen is kept around rather than letting someone like Joe Veleno get a crack at it.

Veleno held his own in his four-game set before being sent back down. It seems like Rasmussen is not going to be the player the Red Wings are hoping for, and Veleno still has the hope to do so. He’s still looking like he could be an important future piece for this organization.

Rasmussen has just not been able to be the player that the Red Wings have been hoping for. If he can somehow start tapping into some production, the Red Wings might have something, but for now, it seems like that is pretty farfetched and not going to happen.

The Red Wings are likely going to keep sending him out there night in and night out. The hope should be that Rasmussen can figure it out, but the way it looks, he is not the player the Red Wings had hoped they drafted.