One of the main reasons the Red Wings went home this past season after 82 games that hasn’t been talked about much is the fact that their most reliable veterans barely stepped up. Patrick Kane was an outlier, having put up better play as the season went along. But you can’t say the same for players like J.T. Compher.
Overall, Compher’s season was every bit as disappointing as Vladimir Tarasenko’s, and if either player put up a better game when the stakes were at their highest, we might still be talking playoffs. Yeah, it’s speculative, but imagine a pre-2024-25 version of Tarasenko on the ice, or a version of J.T. Compher capable of a 48-50-point season.
That’s a huge difference, even when it only pertains to a couple of players. All of that said, Compher’s underwhelming play was a direct contribution to the poor overall outing we got from the Red Wings in 2204-25.
Grade: D - What kept Compher from failing the test, you ask? Even if we expected more from him, it’s not like Compher often played at the same level as Tarasenko in the past. Compher is someone who would max out somewhere between 45 and 52 points in a single season, so if he got closer to that, even between 38 and 40 points, I’d have handed him a better grade.
J.T. Compher’s 2024-25 season was a downer for the Red Wings
You can argue that Compher played worse than Tarasenko, but that doesn’t mean I had to give him a failing grade. Still, I thought about it, given his 11-goal, 32-point season that ended with a minus-7, and an 11.2 shooting percentage. That latter number isn’t the worst, but coming off a season in which he snagged a 17.6 shooting percentage, you can see why I’m pointing at it.
If he scored more, a lower percentage wouldn’t have been a big deal here. Or, if he won more than 45.1 percent of his face-offs and landed more than 29 body checks, I’d go easier here. Right now, the adjective ‘unmemorable’ is how I’d describe Compher’s campaign.
Should the Red Wings punch their ticket into the playoffs next season, players like Compher need to step up and lead the young guys. If not, then don’t expect anything to change in 2025-26.
Speaking of 2025-26, Compher will…
Look like a better player, but not the 48-point, 19-goal scorer we saw in 2023-24. He’ll finish the year with something around 40 points and 15 goals, which if he were to log middle-six minutes, where he needs to be, Wings fans should take it as a win.
And if he hit or exceeded 48 points - it’s always possible, right? Oh, it would be a sign that the Wings, as a group, would factor in as one of the NHL’s more dangerous high-octane teams. Because in such a scenario, you know Lucas Raymond and Dylan Larkin would be putting up gaudy numbers.
So, go into 2025-26 with a realistic mindset, but an increase in performance from Compher would indicate an overall increase across the Wings top two lines. Should he disappoint us again, it wouldn’t surprise me if you saw a scoring output similar to what you got this season.
