Everybody who isn't DeBrincat, Larkin or Raymond scored 139 goals. That's 4th fewest in the league
The sub has been going in circles on Larkin for a week now. Podcast episodes about whether he and Detroit can reconcile, threads about whether he makes it to game 1, and I get it, he asked out and that stings in a way numbers don't fix. But somebody posted a thread titled "with or without Larkin, Red Wings still need to address offense" and that's the one I couldn't stop thinking about, because it's actually checkable. So I checked it.
Detroit scored 241 goals last season. 22nd out of 32. You already knew it wasn't good.
Here's the part I didn't know. Split the skaters in 2, the 3 leading goal scorers and then everybody else, and the 2 halves live in completely different leagues. Skaters accounted for 239 of the 241, the other 2 being awarded goals, so the split below adds to 239 and not 241.
- DeBrincat 41, Larkin 34, Raymond 25. 100 goals from the top 3, which is the 9th biggest top-3 in the NHL. Ahead of Utah, ahead of Buffalo, ahead of Boston.
- The other 26 skaters: 139 goals. 4th fewest in the league, tied with Los Angeles. Only Winnipeg, Chicago and Nashville got less out of their non-stars. League average is 162.
9th and 4th from the bottom, same team, same season.
| Team | Top 3 | Rest of roster | Rest, rank of 32 | Points | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| WPG | Winnipeg Jets | 105 | 124 | 32 | 82 |
| CHI | Chicago Blackhawks | 80 | 130 | 31 | 72 |
| NSH | Nashville Predators | 107 | 135 | 30 | 86 |
| DET | Detroit Red Wings | 100 | 139 | 28 | 92 |
| LAK | Los Angeles Kings | 81 | 139 | 29 | 90 |
| CGY | Calgary Flames | 62 | 146 | 27 | 77 |
| NJD | New Jersey Devils | 79 | 147 | 26 | 87 |
| VAN | Vancouver Canucks | 62 | 148 | 25 | 58 |
Detroit and LA both landed on 139 so the ranking had to break the tie somehow. Call it 4th fewest and don't read anything into which one got 28.
The easy version of this is "too dependent on the stars," and I don't buy it
Colorado's top 3 was 124 of 298, which is almost exactly the same share Detroit's was, and Colorado finished 121 points. Being top heavy is fine if the rest of the roster still shows up. Nashville and Winnipeg are on this list too and they were top heavy and bad, so the share on its own tells you nothing.
What Detroit has is a level problem, not a shape problem. The 4th leading goal scorer was Patrick Kane at 16 and the 5th was van Riemsdyk at 15, and after that it's 13, 11, 10, 9, 9, 9, 7 and you're into single digits fast. 3 guys hit 20 goals when the league average is 4.1, and 5 hit 15 when the average is 6.4. Add it up and the depth is about 23 goals short of what an average team gets from everybody outside its top 3.
I should be fair about where those 23 come from, because it isn't all concentration. Detroit's skater total of 239 is already about 14 below the league's 253, and the top 3 being 9 above average accounts for most of the rest. So "4th fewest from the depth" is partly just "Detroit doesn't score much."
And this is where it gets annoying
Kane's in Chicago now. Van Riemsdyk isn't on the roster either. That's the 4th and 5th leading goal scorers, 31 goals, gone.
What came back in is Viktor Arvidsson, who scored 25 in 69 games for Boston last season, plus Keegan Kolesar, who had 6 in 82 for Vegas. 31 out, 31 in.
And here's the thing that made me laugh in a not very funny way. 25 goals would tie Arvidsson with Raymond for 3rd on this team. The guy brought in to be depth scoring is, on last year's numbers, a top 3 scorer here. That's how thin the middle of this roster is.
I'd love to talk myself into him being more than that. He's a real player and 25 goals is 25 goals. He's also 33, he had 15 in 67 the year before that and 6 in 18 the year before that, and his last 4 seasons are 77, 18, 67 and 69 games. He's never played a full 82 in his career. Betting on 25 again is betting on his best season in 3 years repeating a year older.
Where the goals would actually come from
The honest answer is the kids, and it's not a satisfying answer in August. Emmitt Finnie put up 13 goals in 82 games at 21. Marco Kasper had 9 in 81 at 22. Nate Danielson got 28 games. If Finnie goes 13 to 22 and Kasper goes 9 to 18, that's 18 goals out of nowhere and most of the depth gap closes without anybody signing anything. If they stay flat, it doesn't, and nobody left on the free agent board fixes 139.
The part that argues the other way, and it's a good argument
If you're about to tell me that trading Larkin obviously makes the offense worse, you're right, and I'm not going to pretend otherwise. 34 goals is 34 goals. Move him and the top 3 drops from 100 to somewhere around 91 even with Arvidsson sliding up, and Detroit goes from 3 twenty-goal scorers to 2 when the league average is 4.1. Total goals is what actually tracks points, and across the league last season the top-3 bucket tracked the standings a bit better than the depth bucket did. So no, this isn't "Larkin doesn't matter."
What I'd say instead is that the depth number doesn't move either way. Keep him and you're a 92 point team with 139 from the bottom of the roster. Trade him for a package and you're a worse team next April with 139 from the bottom of the roster, plus whatever the package turns into in 3 years. The thing that has to get fixed is the same thing in both worlds, and it's the one nobody's arguing about.
Detroit finished 92 points on a minus 17 goal differential. Fixing minus 17 means scoring more or allowing less, and if it's the scoring, it has to come from the 26 players who managed 139, because the 3 who managed 100 are already doing their part.
Anyway that's what I've got. Am I wrong that the depth is the story? I keep seeing people say the offense needs a top 6 forward, and I sort of think it needs a 3rd line that can score, which is a much less fun thing to ask for. If you want me to run the same split for another team or another season, say so and I'll do it.
Numbers from the NHL's own API: final 2025-26 standings (api-web.nhle.com/v1/standings/2026-04-17) and every team's skater goal totals (api-web.nhle.com/v1/club-stats/<TEAM>/20252026/2), pulled 2026-08-18. Season was 82 games. Kane's and Arvidsson's current teams and Arvidsson's season log are from the same API's player pages. Larkin's trade request has been widely reported; nothing here assumes an outcome. Script: scripts/nhl_depth_scoring.py in the repo, and the chart and the table come from the same run.
Got a Detroit number you want looked at? Email projectunmuted@proton.me and it gets looked at properly. A stat somebody quoted that smells wrong, a thing you have always assumed about one of these 4 teams and have never seen checked. Every question that arrives is listed with its answer, including the ones where the answer is no.