The phrases “difference-maker” and “elite-level talent” have come up often when discussing the Detroit Red Wings’ ongoing rebuild. The task of any rebuild is to find and add players that those phrases apply to, and teams usually need luck in the draft lottery and the draft as a whole to accumulate that kind of talent.
The reason these types of players come up when discussing the Red Wings is because they haven’t had much luck when it comes to the draft. They swung and missed on several picks in the years leading up to the Spring of 2019 when Steve Yzerman took over as general manager, and they’ve never picked higher than fourth overall because they’ve never been on the winning side of a draft lottery. When people talk about why the Red Wings aren’t further along in their rebuild, the conversation usually leads to this fact.
But the notion that the Red Wings haven’t been able to add a “difference-maker” during this rebuild is a faulty one – not while Lucas Raymond is wearing the winged-wheel at least.
Whether you use the eye test or a deep dive into his statistics and analytics, there is plenty of evidence that points to Raymond being that type of player – the type of player that will power the Red Wings’ next run of success.
Raymond’s Production
Since the days of Pavel Datsyuk and Henrik Zetterberg leading the charge, the Red Wings have had just one player exceed a point per-game pace. It was Dylan Larkin, the player that became the team’s top player the moment Zetterberg stepped away from the game in 2018, and it was just last season as the Red Wings captain totaled 69 points over 68 games. While point production is not the only way to determine the quality of a player, the best players in the world tend to accumulate a lot of them on a consistent basis.
That is why it is so impressive that, as of this writing, Raymond has 41 points in 39 games, which leads the Red Wings this season and is eight points ahead of the player in second place (Larkin). Since last January (84 games), Raymond has 83 points, with only 35 of them coming on the power play. Over the Red Wings’ 82 games in the year 2024, he was the only Red Wing to record a point per-game pace.
Raymond also ranks second in goals and points among members of the 2020 draft class, trailing only Tim Stützle (third overall) of the Ottawa Senators.
Raymond has established himself as a creator in the Red Wings’ top six….
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