That’s it for another Red Wings hockey season.
Game 82, the regular season finale, took place Thursday in Tampa Bay with the Wings falling to the Lightning 5-0.
In a game befitting the regular season finale, with one team (the Wings) headed for the offseason and the other (Tampa) headed to the first-round of the playoffs next week, there was a dose of aggressiveness but mostly it was a countdown to the end of the season.
Tampa’s Brayden Point had two goals (power play, empty net), Alex Killorn, Brandon Hagel and Michael Eyssimont scored Tampa’s goals but it was Point who the Amalie Arena crowd got excited about. It was Point’s 50th and 51st goals of the season, the first time Point reached the special milestone. Lightning goalie Brian Elliott stopped 32 shots for his second shutout.
Definitely it wasn’t the way the Wings wanted to end the season.
The Wings (35-37-10) ended the season below .500, but also concluded the season with five consecutive losses. The Wings will have the ninth-best odds to win the draft lottery (the Wings also have the New York Islanders first-round pick, which will be determined after the Islanders’ playoff run concludes).
BOX SCORE: Lightning 5, Red Wings 0
This was the seventh consecutive season the Wings will miss the playoffs – after making them for 25 consecutive seasons.
The turning point of the Wings’ season is clear to single out.
After the Wings defeated the New York Rangers on Feb. 23, the Wings were above the playoff line, the eighth seed in the Eastern Conference, and appeared set to make a concerted run at the playoffs.
Instead, the bottom fell out in a variety of ways,
The next game, Tampa goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy stopped 45 shots as the Lightning shut out the Wings. Then, two consecutive blowout losses on consecutive nights in Ottawa derailed the Wings further.
That also led general manager Steve Yzerman to begin a stream of trades before the deadline later that week. The Wings traded forwards Tyler Bertuzzi, Jakub Vrana and Oskar Sundqvist, and defenseman Filip Hronek, as the Wings accumulated draft picks for the future, while essentially pulling the plug on this season.
Injuries to forwards Robby Fabbri, Michael Rasmussen and Filip Zadina, all of the season-ending variety, depleted the Wings’ depth further.
Signing captain Dylan Larkin and defenseman Jake Walman to contract extensions during that week strengthened the nucleus going forward. But the personnel losses were too difficult to overcome.
Since that victory the Rangers, the Wings went 7-16-2 to conclude the season. The fanbase, briefly energized about a potential playoff chase, quickly turned to daily updates on what the odds of winning the draft lottery were.
There were some highlights, many of them during coach Derek Lalonde’s first season as the Wings’ head coach.
Larkin tied a career-high with 32 goals and established a career-high with 79 points. Free agent acquisitions David Perron, Andrew Copp, Dominik Kubalik, Ben Chiarot and Olli Maatta all had key contributions on and off the ice on the young roster. Ville Husso established himself as the No. 1 goalie, and Walman a top-four defenseman. Mortiz Seider built upon his Calder Cup-winning season of a year ago. Rasmussen took another step forward in his career. Young players Jonatan Berggren, Simon Edvinsson and Mario Kasper showed glimpses of being important parts of the future (albeit Kasper more for his play in Sweden, rather than one game with the Wings).
ted.kulfan@detroitnews.com
Twitter: @tkulfan