DETROIT—On Monday night, the Detroit Red Wings played their final game at Little Caesars Arena of the 2024-25 season, winning a 6–4 decision.
Apr 14, 2025; Detroit, Michigan, USA; The Detroit Red Wings celebrate their win over the Dallas Stars at Little Caesars Arena. (Brian Bradshaw Sevald, Imagn Images)
While strictly speaking, the evening's affair was game 80 of the Red Wings' regular season and number 81 of Dallas, in practice, it felt more like a post-season game for the home team and pre-season game for the visitors. For Detroit, not postseason as in playoffs but post-season as in after the point when the season had stakes attached to it. Meanwhile, the Stars rested two critical defenseman in Esa Lindell and Thomas Harley in preparation for the season they really want to make count, which has yet to begin.
The Red Wings won the game on the strength of a third period surge: three goals in an eight-minute span: first Jonatan Berggren, then Moritz Seider on the power play, and finally Lucas Raymond with a steal then snipe. That outburst took Detroit from 3–2 down when the period began to 5–3 up when Raymond's goal struck the twine not quite ten minutes into the third. The Stars would threaten when Wyatt Johnston cut the lead to 5–4 three minutes after Raymond's marker, but Vladimir Tarasenko hit the empty net to clinch the Red Wings' victory.
Detroit celebrated "Fan Appreciation Night" for its regular season home finale, and while the LCA crowd was as strong in number as any other, for obvious reasons, it lacked the vigor and enthusiasm of the 40 home dates preceding it, games in which their Red Wings still harbored playoff ambitions, however tenuous.
"We had a clear goal coming into the season," said Raymond, whose three-point night brought him to 78 points for the season, after the game. "How close we were last year, the only next step we could take was being in the playoffs, and we were very determined to get there. Obviously we weren't able to do it, and we know that."
As Raymond pointed out, he painful end of the '23-24 season left only one pathway to progress: a playoff bid. Detroit failed to take that step forward, instead playing out an unwelcome re-make of the previous spring's near miss. There were new wrinkles—new faces to replace old ones in the dressing room, a December coaching change as catalyst for a second half surge, an international break rather than injury as the force that interrupted momentum, a record-setting power play set against a comedy of errors masquerading as a penalty kill—but there were also too many familiar beats—a team that enjoyed its share of winning streaks but languished too long in its skids, highly paid free agents unable to live up to their billings, and limping through the season's stretch run until at last spending its last opportunity to sneak across the playoff line.
According to assistant coach Trent Yawney (who spoke postgame, in the stead of head coach Todd McLellan), the team's priorities hadn't changed all that much even after being eliminated. Yawney acknowledged that a team can no longer be pushed to the same degree after its elimination, but added, "It's been the whole time—it's been about habits, about playing the right way and not losing some of the good things that we've had in our game over the last little while: breaking out clean, defending with a purpose, and obviously the special teams...Bad [habits] are harder to break than good ones are to develop."
Right now, the habit the Red Wings desperately need to rid themselves of is their penchant for springtime flameouts, playing their way out instead of in at the most important time of year. On Monday night, they could postpone their confrontation with that problem thanks to the 6–4 win and one last chance to absorb their fans support, but by the end of the week, the offseason's void will beckon again, and Detroit will fall back into a now familiar routine that was once utterly foreign: offseasons that begin in April, not May, much less June.
