PHILADELPHIA — Moritz Seider wants to see more presence from the Detroit Red Wings, who at this point can only look back fondly at that brief moment they spent inside the playoff picture.
They have time to gather their collective thoughts before their next game, which comes Wednesday against the Chicago Blackhawks, a team earmarked for the draft lottery. The Philadelphia Flyers may be waiting for the lottery balls to drop, too, but they still handed the Wings a 3-1 defeat Sunday at Wells Fargo Center, which extended the Wings winless’ skid to six games and prompted Seider’s comments.
“It’s not about taking guys’ heads off, it’s just making sure you’re present out there and people are aware of you and I think we need that a little bit more,” he said. “That’s not up for discussion, I would say, because teams are just out-competing us right now and it’s a really tough feeling.”
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It has been a slew of tough feelings for the Wings since that optimistic night on Feb. 23 when they won for the seventh time in eight games and saw their names in the East’s second wild-card spot. They deserved to win the next game, but the opposing goaltender, Tampa Bay’s Andrei Vasilvskiy, thwarted that effort. But over the past five games their compete level has lacked, and while last week’s trade deadline took an emotional toll, especially in losing two key players in Tyler Bertuzzi and Filip Hronek, the Wings need to figure out how to move on.
“We put that away immediately after the game when Tyler got traded, and Fil the day before,” Seider said. “Those are not excuses any more. We still have a very competitive lineup out there and we still should have won that game.
“It’s really unfortunate we don’t get the bounces our way. PKs are getting a couple goals against, our power play isn’t that that hot any more, and then it’s hard when you are missing big players. So we just really have to come together as a team and put in a team effort to make those wins count here.”
The Wings (28-26-9) are six points out of a wild-card spot, which doesn’t seem like much, but they have five teams ahead of them. Lacking the superstars that mark elite teams, they were unlikely to make the playoffs when the season began. But they kept their points percentage above .500 and, finally, coming out of the All-Star bye week, put together something of a run, winning five in a row. Then they were annihilated in back-to-back losses at Ottawa at the start of last week, and general manager Steve Yzerman did what he needed to do for the rebuild and dealt players for assets.
All along, the message from coach Derek Lalonde hasn’t changed: The Wings can’t take any shifts off, because they don’t have the star power to mask the slack.
“We have to be complete all the time,” Lalonde said. “Pre-trade deadline, when I used to say we have to be perfect to win — it’s where we are at. Now we’re up against it in another way. The good thing is we have our group now. Injuries, trade, a lot went on last week. But we have our group. So hopefully we can build off this.
“Some players are going to have to get out of their comfort level and get to the inside, and that’s not just get into the blue paint, just getting inside battles, keeping plays alive. It’s the reality of our team. Hopefully in the long run, we can learn to be harder in that area. It’s going to benefit for us and a lot of our individual players going forward.”
To Seider’s point, it would be dismal for the Wings to keep giving away games, to let opponents push them around — especially teams that have struggled to win more than the Wings have. Their lineup was weakened by the trade deadline, but at the very least, their work ethic needs to show.
“We lost a couple big players and it’s emotional for some guys,” goalie Ville Husso said. “It’s part of it. We need to come together as a group. There are spots open for other guys. There’s no secret to coming out of it. Just keep battling and go day by day.”
Contact Helene St. James at hstjames@freepress.com. Follow her on Twitter @helenestjames.
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Her latest book, “On the Clock: Behind the Scenes with the Detroit Red Wings at the NHL Draft,” is available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Triumph Books. Personalized copies available via her e-mail.