Red Wings reinforcements, Olympic injuries, and the biggest NHL storylines to watch in February
I’ve been writing this column for more than two years ahead of each month of the NHL regular season, but I’ve never had so little, ya know, NHL hockey to write about. That’s because in a few short days, the league will pause action for three weeks while many of its elite players descend on northern Italy for the 2026 Winter Olympics, the first Games to feature best-on-best action since Sochi 2014.
If last year’s 4 Nations Face-Off was any indication, the Games will provide ample on-ice drama to tide over hockey fanatics until league play resumes just before the close of February. The Olympics will also provide some added impetus for contenders to take care of their business before the roster freeze takes effect on Wednesday.
Will clubs like the Detroit Red Wings, desperate to end a club-record playoff drought, add reinforcements this week before the trade freeze so they can integrate them into new cities over the break? Can ailing clubs like the Washington Capitals and Florida Panthers, on the outs of the postseason picture after last season’s respective successes, use their time off to steel their resolve ahead of the second half? Read on for what to watch out for during the Olympic break, the corresponding roster freeze, and, oh yeah, the remaining action on the ice throughout February.
Is any team dreading its “break” more than the Panthers?
A few weeks back, my colleague Kyle Morton wondered when someone last played as much hockey in as little time as Sam Reinhart has over the past four years, which will have featured three-and-a-half regular seasons, three Stanley Cup Final runs, and two international tournaments with Team Canada by month’s end. Though Duncan Keith and Mike Bossy’s names came up, none of us thought to mention Anton Lundell, Eetu Luostarinen (both of Finland), or Gustav Forsling (SWE), Reinhart’s Florida teammates, who have weathered the same grind throughout this Panthers’ golden age. So has Matt Tkachuk (USA), despite significant injury absences along the way.
Joining them at the Olympics will be minutes-munching defenseman Nikko Mikkola (FIN), depth blueliner Uvis Balinskis (LAT), and even creaky old Brad Marchand (CAN). It’s not much of a break at all for a team whose aforementioned five members have picked up nearly an entire regular season’s worth of extra hockey over the past three springs.
It’s not all bad for the Cats. Laboring (.875 SV%, career-worst) Hall-of-Fame netminder Sergei Bobrovsky’s native Russia is banned from international competition indefinitely. Veteran leaders Aaron Ekblad and Sam Bennett, who have often battled injuries, didn’t make the cut for Team Canada, nor did clutch sniper Carter Verhaeghe. Those guys don’t have to go far to find a beach to rest up on. Still, if the newly healthy Tkachuk, who’s spent the past year battling muscular injuries, or the resurgent Marchand, nearly 38, pick up a knock in Milan, the ostensibly manageable eight-point gulph between the twice-reigning Cup champs, who already lost captain Sasha Barkov to a preseason ACL tear, and the Eastern Conference wild card could start to feel like an ocean.
The Caps need to use their time off to get right
The Capitals were supposed to regress. After last season’s first-place finish in the East featured career-best shooting seasons for just about everyone on the roster, including 900-goal icon Alexander Ovechkin, even they knew that. Washington still expected to display the same heaviness and defensive depth that proved crucial in 2024-25, attributes that should have been enough to stand out in a weak Metropolitan Division.
The Capitals were standing out just fine through the end of December, when they were comfortably in playoff position behind the efforts of free-scoring defenseman Jakob Chychrun, who potted seven goals in November alone, and Vezina contender Logan Thompson. Since then, the Caps have limped to a 12-13-5 mark (eighth-worst) despite Thompson’s enduring success (.908 SV% since 12/1). Washington’s middling 5-on-5 play has been equal parts frustrating and confounding for a lineup featuring brainy defensemen Martin Fehervary and Matt Roy and play-driving power forwards Tom Wilson and Aliaksei Protas.
Unlike Florida, the Capitals have an opportunity to convalesce during the Olympics. With Ovechkin (Russia) and Protas (Belarus) barred from the competition and Chychrun inexplicably snubbed by Team Canada, they will send just three representatives, Canadians Thompson and Wilson and Slovak Fehervary. The rest of their players will doubtlessly spend long hours at the rink with reigning Jack Adams winner Spencer Carbery figuring out how to close the four-point gap separating them from what could be Ovechkin’s final crack at the postseason. Getting top-six center Pierre-Luc Dubois back from a months-long injury absence ahead of a Feb. 25 tilt with the rival Philadelphia Flyers would be a nice start.
It’s time for the Red Wings to push their chips in
The gang at Daily Faceoff has been imploring the Red Wings, finally on track for the Stanley Cup Playoffs after nine seasons away, to add from a position of strength via the trade market for months. Their dangerously thin blueline depth beyond Norris contender Moritz Seider and towering young partner Simon Edvinsson has been a ticking time bomb since before the season began, but Detroit GM (and team legend) Steve Yzerman was caught with his pants down all the same by Edvinsson’s lower-body injury; Detroit is down to 1-2-2 in his absence after a 5-0 thumping by the rival Avalanche.
Seider has never missed an NHL game, but with his ATOI creeping towards the 29-minute mark since Edvinsson went down (and similar Olympic usage for his native Germany looming), the Wings will risk running him into the ground if Edvinsson’s absence continues into March. Even if Edvinsson is back to 100% by the time his team returns to action on Feb. 26, Detroit’s recent form should send them looking for contingency plans all the same; veteran Ben Chiarot and rookie Axel Sandin-Pellikka (42.77% scoring-chance share) were overextended on the second unit even before Edvinsson was injured.
With various rivals (BOS, BUF, MTL) climbing the standings, difficult matchups with the Avs (again) and the Utah Mammoth could drop the Red Wings, who led the Atlantic Division as recently as Jan. 12, all the way down to the eighth seed. Yzerman must know his reputation would not survive another March collapse after the stellar first half his undermanned club pieced together, not least of all after another quiet trade deadline. Veteran coach Todd McLellan has more than earned the right to integrate defensive reinforcements, even if that means his GM finally has to fork over assets from his prized prospect pipeline.
The Mammoth are charging into the second half
After a promising 8-2 start powered by talented young scores like Dylan Guenther and Logan Cooley, the newly christened Utah Mammoth promptly lost the attention of the hockey world with an ugly six-week funk that landed them in the bottom-five mark as recently as Jan. 3. Just when it seemed that the novelty of this “new” team would again fail to translate to on-ice excitement, though, the Mammoth diverged from the aimless path set out by last year’s “Hockey Club” thanks in large part to the contributions of veteran leaders like Lawson Crouse and Nate Schmidt.
Utah’s 10-4-1 record since the turn of the year, good for seventh-best in the NHL, has coincided with coach Andre Tourigny’s decision to move Crouse up to the top line. When the hard-shooting, hard-hitting Crouse is around to do the dirty work (10 P, 38 hits in 13 GP since 1/1) for longtime teammates Nick Schmaltz and Clayton Keller, Utah is crushing its opposition by a score of 13-3. While Crouse’s destructive game has revitalized the forward group, smooth-skating blueliners Schmidt and partner John Marino continue to settle things down at the other end of the ice; Schmidt and Marino have quieted opposition guns (2.31 expected goals against per 60 minutes) all season to the tune of an outstanding 46-19 game score at 5-on-5.
With Cooley inching toward a return from the lower-body injury that’s kept him out since Dec. 5, the Mammoth have an excellent opportunity to take control of the Western wild card race. If they do, they’ll remember the crucial if unglamorous contributions of guys like Crouse, Schmidt, Marino, and Jack McBain (9 P, 58 hits since 1/1) almost as much as captain Keller’s well-timed hot streak (22 P in last 20 GP).
Don’t be surprised to see more Olympic roster shuffling
Fans of the only three teams (CAN, SWE, USA) with considerably more healthy NHL players than Olympic roster spots can stop me if they’ve heard this one before: “Why would Doug Armstrong/Sam Hallam/Bill Guerin pick Travis Sanheim/Pontus Holmberg/J.T. Miller over Jakob Chychrun/Mikael Backlund/Jason Robertson? Didn’t he learn anything from last year?” Yes, Canada could have really used another elite puckmover at the 4 Nations. It’s also true that Hallam’s record in major tournaments hasn’t justified his occasionally mystifying selections, and that Guerin’s obsession with intangibles has officially jumped the shark. Still, it’s important to remember that nothing is set in stone yet.
The Swedes know that well, having suffered injuries to top center Leo Carlsson, an emerging star with the Anaheim Ducks, and veteran defender Jonas Brodin that will keep both men from competing at the Games; Brodin’s Minnesota teammate Marcus Johansson will step in for Carlsson despite a recent cold snap (3 P in last 13 GP), while 2022-23 Norris third runner-up Hampus Lindholm will join a loaded Swedish blue ine in place of Brodin. Hallam could have to do more moving and shaking if captaincy candidates Gabriel Landeskog, out of action for the Avalanche since a nasty spill on Jan. 4, or Victor Hedman, who just returned to the Tampa Bay Lightning lineup from a 21-game injury absence, continue to struggle for fitness.
Team Canada, meanwhile, will be concerned with Landeskog’s teammate Devon Toews’s health; one of the league’s most reliable two-way defensemen, Toews, like Landeskog, hasn’t suited up since Jan. 3. Lightning forwards Brayden Point, out since Jan. 13 with a lower-body issue, and Anthony Cirelli, who was hurt during Sunday’s outdoor game, are also question marks for the Games. Guerin, GM of the comparatively healthy Team USA, wasn’t happy to see his Wild’s star winger Matt Boldy hit the IR two weeks ago, but he doesn’t expect to have to make another injury replacement after having already swapped out Seth Jones for Jackson LaCombe. Then again, no one plans to get hurt. These rosters aren’t final until the puck drops in Milan.
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