The Red Wings had a bad season last year. Several players put up poor independent performances that led to missing the playoffs for the first time in twenty five years. It meant they relied heavily on their captain, Henrik Zetterberg, who finished the season just two points shy of 70 as a 36-year-old.

This year, though the team is still in the thralls of mediocrity, they are receiving much better performances from some important players who came up short last season. While this takes some of the pressure off of Zetterberg, it also builds confidence in these players and increases their trade value if management ever decides to take that route.

Here are three players who are experiencing bounce back seasons and why it’s important for the team.

Dylan Larkin is the obvious one. He has been the Red Wings success story of the year so far. After suffering a terrible sophomore slump last year that saw him put up a mere 32 points in 80 games (17 goals, 15 assists), Larkin has bounced back this year to already match his point total from last season – in 42 less games!

What I find truly interesting about Larkin this year is it’s not that he’s stumbled upon the magic from his rookie season. It’s that he’s found a whole new dimension to his game. As a centerman, he is playing a different role now, expected to play smarter, which has resulted in his 26 assists. Larkin isn’t the goal scorer that he was as a rookie. Instead, he’s turned into a playmaker who is the primary reason behind many of his teammates’ goals. As a penalty killer, he has been given more defensive responsibility. As a powerplay contributor, he has been asked to unleash his offensive intelligence. He hasn’t returned to his rookie season form, he’s surpassed it. Both the regular statistics and the fancy statistics support this.

This is important for the Wings because Dylan Larkin is the future. At 21-years-old, Larkin still has a lot of growing to do, but his play is trending in the right direction. Every team needs a strong, fast, and smart 2-way center and Larkin is going to be great in this role for many years. Many are already calling for him to be the next captain. He’s one of the few bright spots on this team and fans should be excited for how much more improvement he still has left in him.

Last year, the first year of Justin Abdelkader’s contract extension, was not good. It was a bad contract already, running seven years with an average annual value of $4.25-million, but it was made worse by the quality of play that the team was getting for him. To pile on, he got hurt and his season was cut short to 64 games. In those 64 games, he only scored 7 goals and 14 assists for a point total of 21. The former 40 point scorer was really struggling without the help of Pavel Datsyuk.

This year though, Datsyuk is still in Russia, but Abdelkader seems to have returned to his old form. Already, he’s put up 19 points (6 goals, 13 assists), a mere two points behind his total last season, in 27 less games. This has him on pace for 42 points, which is exactly how many he had in 2015-16, the last year Datsyuk played in Detroit.

In addition to this, Abdelkader’s line with Frans Nielsen and Darren Helm has been one of the best and most consistent for the Red Wings. They are frequently matched against other teams’ top lines and manage to shut them down night in and night out. Abby is a big part of grinding out their opponents and working the front of the net.

Abby’s performance this year is important for Detroit because he’s committed to this team for a very long time. Too long for his play to start degrading now. Detroit needs him to be the mid-6 grinder that he’s made a career out of being. He’s tough, persistent, and chippy. If he can continue to be those things and add a side of offense like he’s doing this season, he will be a serviceable player to this team. And his cap hit will sting much less.

I hesitated to include Gustav Nyquist on this list because he’s actually struggled quite a bit this season. With 20 points in 38 games, he’s on pace to put up 43 points, which is five less than what he put up last year in only 76 games. In addition to this, his 46.99 Corsi-For percentage is the worst of his career so far.

The reason I did decide to include him is because of his goal scoring. Thanks to his two goal game on New Year’s Eve against the Pittsburgh Penguins, Nyquist has tied his goal total from all of last season in only half the games. In fact, Nyquist is currently on pace to score 25 goals, which would be his highest goal output since he scored 27 in the 2014-15 season.

What’s more impressive is that 11 of his goals came at 5v5, which is the second highest amount of 5v5 goals he’s scored in a season. Last year, Nyquist only scored 10 goals at 5v5. Finally, Nyquist’s 1.22 Goals-For per sixty is more than double what his GF/60 was in 2016-17. It’s the highest 5v5 GF/60 on the team among forwards who have played more than 100 minutes (David Booth is rocking a 2.07 G/60 with 86.83 minutes played).

Nyquist rediscovering his scoring touch is huge for a team that frequently struggles to get on the scoreboard. Anthony Mantha got off to a strong offensive start this season, but has since dried up and the team needed somebody to pick up the slack. In addition to this, if management decides to really kick this rebuild off and start selling some assets, Nyquist as a 25-goal scorer is far more valuable than Nyquist as a 12-goal scorer.

I’m not going to do a whole explanation of it, but Jonathan Ericsson deserves to be mentioned on this list. For reasons why, you can read my previous post here.

Despite some strong performances from these individual players, the Red Wings still stink of mediocrity. Their defense, in particular, needs to be much better if they want to be competitive again. Still, it’s encouraging to see strong individual performances by fun players. It at least keeps the games interesting.

Who have you enjoyed watching this season? Sound off in the comments.