How the Red Wings are managing the chaos this season - ESPN

All the Detroit Red Wings wanted was puck drop on a new season.

It was the only way.

The only way to — finally — turn the page on a tumultuous offseason of gossipy headlines that deposited Detroit under an unwelcome (and unrelenting) spotlight. There was captain Dylan Larkin's trade request in June, Steve Yzerman abruptly stepping down as general manager in July, key restricted free agent Simon Edvinsson remaining unsigned and no new front office leader in place until the announcement of interim general manager Shawn Horcoff just two days before training camp opened in late September.

The Red Wings — fresh off missing the playoffs for a tenth straight year in 2025-26 — limped their way into another preseason anyway. Larkin, stripped of the team's captaincy, was there but soon injured. Edvinsson, still without a contract, came to town as well (before going home to Sweden on the heels of his own trade request). It felt as though the drama was reaching a fever pitch faster than Detroit could get to that first real game, where the team's play — and not some media machine — could do the talking.

Promise. Hope. Belief. The Red Wings had it all just hours away from their first real outing. The slate would be clean, the energy refreshed.

«It's us against the rest of the world,» defenseman Moritz Seider said. «That's something we've learned pretty fast; with how much noise there is around this team. I think there are plenty of reasons to be anxious or nervous. But it's like, even if we didn't know who the [full-time] GM was at the start of camp, like, what changes? Nothing, really, because he's not the one who's setting the standard, who's setting the tone on the ice, and he's definitely not going to go out there and help us to