I'm so confused about how I should feel about the Wings heading into next season.

On the one hand, while it's an extremely boring brand of hockey, I think the shift to a more defensive style proved to be successful — except against mediocre teams. I'm worried about that.

It's great that Detroit has been in it with a lot of the top teams this year, but they had a minus-35 goal differential in 24 games vs. CHI, NSH and DAL.

That's embarrassing and makes me wonder if we should be giving so much weight to them hanging in with TB, CAR and FLA

The Central turned out to be a stacked, top-heavy division.

Did those top teams subconsciously take nights off against the Wings? Did the middle-ground teams rise to the occasion bc they knew they couldn't afford to drop 2 points against Detroit?

That's basically what I'll be internally debating all offseason, because even in close games against top teams, they weren't always "in it."

A lot of nights they got whooped on and the scoreboard didn't show it (see: Thursday vs. Carolina)

This year was miles better than last year, and I think Jeff Blashill deserves some credit for riding the wave of COVID designations and key injuries, all while still managing to pull out wins with Marc Staal playing over 18 minutes a night.

This team was never going to win track meets. Blashill adjusted their style of play to that and found success/growth, however menial. This is probably going to upset a lot of people, but I think he gets at least another year behind the bench.

I don't know whether that's the right move, but I do think it's hard to believe that Yzerman will let Blashill go after this year when he brought him back after 19-20. And it's also not the end of the world.

But next year matters a lot, especially for Blashill. A majority of the kids that we're excited about will be getting reps in the NHL and the roster will (hopefully) look pretty different.

They have to be better against mediocre opponents. They need to score in SOME capacity.

There's a lot to be excited about. I can't wait to see the kids take over. I'm inspired by the fact that they've shown up against top teams without a majority of their established players.

But as far as using this season as a whole to project next season's success, I am lost