Suddenly, The Red Wings Power Play is Powerless to Help

A year ago, the power play was the salve that soothed many of the warts afflicting the Detroit Red Wings.

This season, instead of an ointment, it’s proven to be another ailment among the team’s many maladies.

Over the club’s current three-game losing streak, the power play is 0-for-11. Through the past five games, as Detroit has gone 1-4, the power play is 1-for-20.

“I don’t want to make too much out of it,” Red Wings captain Dylan Larkin said. “It’s not good enough right now.”

What has happened to the Red Wings power play?

— Josh Grimes (@grimetime53) November 9, 2025

Coach Todd McLellan will agree with his captain on the latter point. However, he seems to be of a different mind about Larkin’s initial statement.

McLellan is ready to make much ado about his club’s woeful power play. At 18.9% (10-for-53), Detroit is now ranked 16th in the NHL with the man advantage.

“Our power play basically from Day 1 has been pretty average to this point,” McLellan said. “We haven’t had a lot of highs yet on it. We’ve scored some important goals, but not near enough.”

No Guarantee Red Wings Would Be Good On Power Play

Last season, Detroit’s 24.1% success rate on the power play saw the unit rating as the fourth-best in the NHL. Still, entering the season, assistant coach Alex Tanguay, who is in charge of the power play, suggested there was no carryover from a successful power play into the next season.

McLellan is echoing those sentiments.

“Every season’s its own,” McLellan said. “You have to start all over, you have to re-establish things.

“You just don’t show up and put your equipment on and say, ‘Hey, we got a good power play.'”

What’s Causing The Power (Play) Outage?

When analyzing the shortcomings of the power play, everyone is in agreement that the problems start from the start.

“It starts with the faceoff, which I take most of the time, and not winning them,” Larkin said. “And we’re going down 200 feet. That’s on me, and I gotta win the first battle of the two minutes.

“Last year, when we were good … we were winning those draws and attacking and getting the kill on their heels.”

Me watching another red wings power play pic.twitter.com/u1QICByc5U

— Jake (fmr. RivardNHL) (@313Hockey) November 9, 2025

Once that draw is lost, the puck is usually heading far away from the attacking zone. Then the Wings double down on issues thanks to their inability to regain the zone.

“We don’t get in and get established,” McLellan said. “We had a tough time entering the zone, and I think we lost eight or nine faceoffs (Sunday against Chicago). So all of a sudden you keep starting in your zone.

“When we did finally settle pucks down and spend any type of time in the zone, I thought we looked good on the outside. Again, not a lot of net presence or any type of screening down low where the goaltender had any type of trouble.”

Larkin Thinks It Can Be Fixed

McLellan is considering changes to his power play groups.

“There’ll be a lot of discussions over the next few days of what we do with the units,” the coach said.

The captain thinks that now in its time of crisis, the powers that be need to show some faith in the process and let the top group work out its issues.

“We have a good power play, and we have the personnel there,” Larkin said. “We showed it not just over a few games, but over years, and we showed that we can be good.

“We’ve just got to figure it out.”