The Detroit Red Wings enjoyed one of the longest postseason streaks in professional sports, qualifying for the Stanley Cup Playoffs every season from 1991 through 2016.
During that time, they advanced to the Stanley Cup Final six times, and won the Stanley Cup four times, adding to their total of the most championships by any NHL club based in the United States.
However, their five-game series loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning in the 2016 Eastern Conference Quarter Final remains their most recent playoff appearance to date.
Since then, the Red Wings have moved from Joe Louis Arena to Little Caesars Arena, hired beloved team icon Steve Yzerman as their general manager, and experienced an especially trying season of 2019-20 season, earning the lowest point total in franchise history since 1985-86.
The good news is that they’ve made gradual, incremental improvements in the standings since then, with the 2024-25 campaign being the only season under Yzerman in which they didn’t improve their point total from the previous year.
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Little Caesars Arena has yet to host a Stanley Cup Playoff game, something that veteran Andrew Copp, entering his fourth year with the club, said has to change this season, which is the franchise’s 100th in the NHL.
“We have to make the playoffs, it’s our goal and our focus,” Copp said following Tuesday’s practice. “Anything short of that is going to be looked at as not good enough, and I don’t think we can be fearful of admitting that. We need to look at our goal straight in the eye, and everything we do from now until April is to make the playoffs.”
Copp, who hails from the Detroit suburb of Ann Arbor and also played college hockey for the Michigan Wolverines, suffered a season-ending injury in late February. Naturally, it was difficult for him to not be available to help his team on the ice from that point on.
Red Wings Players To Watch In 2025-26: Andrew Copp
It was a homecoming for forward Andrew Copp, an Ann Arbor native who played for the University of Michigan, when he signed as an unrestricted free agent with the Detroit Red Wings during the 2022 offseason.
“It was definitely not fun at a time when I felt that both my team and the team game was starting to take off,” he said. “I think we’d just finished two seven-game win streaks in 20 games. It was bad timing, for sure. But I feel like I had a long time to train and I had a long time to clear my head mentally, be refreshed for a new season.”
A key penalty killer for the Red Wings, Copp is understandably excited to be back on the ice after missing the final month and a half of last season.
“I’m excited,” Copp said. “I was chomping at the bit maybe in July and August more than usual because it’d been that long since I played a hockey game, so I’m very excited. I think every individual is the same, you want to have as big a role as possible, play as well as possible.”
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