Red Wings Expecting a Different Michael Brandsegg-Nygard This Season

There's a buzz building around the Red Wings, and his name is Michael Brandsegg-Nygard. The Norwegian winger spent much of the 2025-26 season down in the AHL with the Grand Rapids Griffins, and he did not waste a minute of it, piling up 20 goals and 44 points in 60 games and earning high praise from Griffins coach Dan Watson, who called him their best player in the playoffs. Now the question is whether that production follows him up the road. In 14 NHL games so far, Brandsegg-Nygard has a solitary assist to show for it — the numbers tell you the development is real, and the next chapter has to be written at Little Caesars Arena. Todd McLellan and Larks know what they have in the kid, and the hope is a different, hungrier player shows up this fall. He gets his stage soon enough: we host the New York Rangers in the NHL premiere at Little Caesars Arena on Friday. That is the kind of spotlight a young winger dreams about.