The Detroit Red Wings are scheduled to have their team picture taken Monday.
It’s unlikely there’ll be any smiles.
Their aspiration to show they can end the season on a competitive note was tarnished with weekend performances that emphasized how far the Wings are from the NHL’s elite. A 6-1 loss Sunday to the Presidents’ Trophy-contending Florida Panthers came 24 hours after a 4-0 loss to the playoff-bound New York Rangers. The Wings were eliminated from contention April 9, but they tried to approach this six-game stretch against top opponents as an opportunity to prove something about themselves.
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“I’ve said it a lot — someone can’t push you out the door like it’s minor hockey and give you candy after the game,” captain Dylan Larkin said after the loss at Little Caesars Arena. “You have to take pride in this and you have to take pride in wearing the winged wheel and going out there and fighting for a job next year. There’s plenty of our guys in our locker room that have to do that — I would say everyone. You have to find that yourself and it doesn’t just come. You have to find it. We play great teams here — let’s go out and give it our best. We haven’t had enough of that. We need to see it every night.”
The Wings (29-37-10) play on the road against the Tampa Bay Lightning on Tuesday and against the Panthers on Thursday, and play their last game at LCA on Saturday against the Pittsburgh Penguins.
“It’s a real challenge when you’re playing so many teams with elite players and I think guys need to keep stepping up and playing better hockey,” coach Jeff Blashill said. “These honestly should be great challenges — you want to see what you’re about as an individual. We’re a bit undermanned with some injury issues, but that gives other guys opportunity. How good are you going to be as a player and how can we as a group show that we’re better.”
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The Wings are 1-2 to open this stretch, with the victory requiring 46 saves from Alex Nedeljkovic in a 3-0 final at Carolina. Thomas Greiss did what he could against the Rangers, but neither he nor Nedeljkovic against the Panthers had goal support. It was 5-0 when Pius Suter scored Sunday, and all the Wings could do was look back and wonder what might have been had they finished some of their chances, such as when Larkin hit a goal post.
“If we score on those chances, it’s a different feeling you have,” Blashill said. “Everybody hates losing. It sucks. But if the one that goes off the post early, if that goes in — what’s the story of the game? It might be different. I think our joy is going to come from making sure we grind, making sure we get better and then joy comes from when you put yourself in position to win.”
The Wings put themselves in position to win through mid-February, going 22-21-6. Since Feb. 14, they’ve gone 7-16-4 and have been outscored, 123-73. There’s a wish to end on a positive note, to give themselves a sense that maybe next season will be different and they won’t be done in April — but they are running out of runway.
“I take it personally,” Larkin said. “It’s brutal. To be here — I’ve been here all six years. It’s no fun packing your bag at the end of the year and going and playing in the World Championships or doing whatever. It just isn’t. You want to play playoff hockey. We have a lot of guys in here that haven’t been through this, but you have to remember it, you have to take it in and put it on yourself to come back and come back and have a great year next year and make sure it doesn’t happen again. It can’t happen much longer.”
Contact Helene St. James at hstjames@freepress.com. Follow her on Twitter @helenestjames. Read more on the Detroit Red Wings and sign up for our Red Wings newsletter. Her book, The Big 50: The Detroit Red Wings is available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Triumph Books. Personalized copies available via her e-mail.