As the regular season nears, that has prompted questions about just how good the Wings might be in 2021-22. Free Press reader Bruce Law wrote to ask, “Helene, look into your crystal ball and give me your best guess/prediction for the Wings in ‘21-22. A playoff team? Will the Wings be like the ‘21 Tigers and give us a better, more consistent day-to-day effort, although fall short of the playoffs? Thanks.”

The Wings haven’t been to the playoffs since 2016; their historic 25-season streak, which included four Stanley Cups, was nipped on March 28, 2017, when they were eliminated after a loss on the road to the Carolina Hurricanes. They’ve endured some rough times since then, with the worst being the misery of 2019-20, when they were 17-49-5 — 29 points worse than the next-to-last team — when the NHL shut down the season because of COVID-19.

They made progress last season, though the enthusiasm in early January's camp had dissipated by the end of the month thanks to having five players in COVID-19 quarantine for two weeks, and losing Tyler Bertuzzi to a back injury.

This season’s camp already hit a sour note when forward Jakub Vrana showed up late and then left after 10 minutes because of a nagging shoulder issue that required surgery. He’s out a minimum of four months, which will take him into January — but since the NHL is shut down almost all of February because of the Olympic Games in Beijing, Vrana is looking at a March return, realistically.

Even without Vrana, the Wings project to be competitive among the top six forwards: His absence creates an opportunity for veteran Bobby Ryan — and 2020 first-round pick Lucas Raymond — to battle Filip Zadina for spots on a line with Dylan Larkin and Tyler Bertuzzi, or Pius Suter and Robby Fabbri.

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