After a long offseason spent contemplating a playoff push that ended one point short, the Red Wings embark on the 2024-25 season looking to take the next step. But before they can even think of playoff hockey, they have to start from square one.
Game one: a home opener against the Pittsburgh Penguins.
The Penguins won’t be starting from scratch, having played Wednesday night in a 6-0 defeat at the hands of the New York Rangers. There’s a sense of hunger there that Detroit can see, not only from a team that has already started the season but also one looking to prove something upon its visit to the Red Wings.
“(It’s) gonna be a huge challenge in that it’ll be an extremely motivated team,” Red Wings coach Derek Lalonde said after morning skate. “They’re way too well coached. They want too much. They have a lot of pride in that room. We’ll definitely get the best of them.”
Mandatory Credit: Charles LeClaire-Imagn Images
Detroit, meanwhile, doesn’t have the same energy quite yet — at least, it hasn’t shown it. Lalonde shared his disproval at his team’s compete level in preseason, repeating that his veteran players were getting what they needed from preseason, but the majority of the time they weren’t giving the extra mile. That’s preseason, a far cry from when the games actually matter. But if Detroit wants to make the playoffs 82 games from now, they know that every point matters.
“Everybody knows that we want to make the playoffs, but there are steps to be made to get there,” Detroit forward Patrick Kane said Sept. 19. “I mean, we’re not just gonna start the season at 91 points. … We have to work for it.”
[Read More: With Playoff Hopes in Mind, Red Wings Enter Season Anew]
Lineups
The Red Wings’ lines for this game are exactly the ones you could have predicted after the first week of free agency. Since preseason, the Red Wings’ lines have been the following:
Forwards
Alex DeBrincat – Dylan Larkin – Lucas Raymond
Vladimir Tarasenko – J.T. Compher – Patrick Kane
Michael Rasmussen – Andrew Copp – Christian Fischer
Tyler Motte – Joe Veleno – Jonatan Berggren
Defense
Ben Chiarot – Moritz Seider
Simon Edvinsson – Jeff Petry
Olli Maatta – Erik Gustafsson
What wasn’t such a predictable lineup decision is the goaltender. In net, Ville Husso will start the…