Steve Ott won’t lie to you.
What’s going on right now with the Detroit Red Wings, it scares him.
Losers of four in a row and six of their last seven on home ice, and a disappointing 2-8-1 overall in their last 11 games, when you dissect what’s going wrong for the Wings, it isn’t difficult to decipher.
When push comes to shove, when the game’s on the line, the Wings are the team that is giving in.
Five times this month, including four of their past eight games, the Wings have either coughed up a lead or surrendered the game-winning goal in the final stages of the third period, each time costing themselves a shot at a valuable point for an overtime loss.
In Sunday’s 3-2 loss to Calgary, Flames forward Mikael Backlund snapped a 2-2 tie with 7:46 left in regulation time. There was 5:11 to go in third period of Friday’s 1-0 loss at Washington when Jay Beagle netted the game’s only goal.
Last Tuesday Nikita Kucherov’s game winner caused a 4-3 loss to Tampa Bay with 1:10 remaining in the third period. And against Winnipeg on Nov. 4, Brandon Tanev snapped a 3-3 tie with 1:16 to play in the third of the Jets’ 5-3 triumph.
Another point was lost Nov. 2 at Philadelphia, when Mark Streit netted the game-tying tally with 1:04 to go in regulation and the Flyers were victorious 4-3 in OT.
“We are paying for our mistakes,” Detroit left-winger Tomas Tatar said. “They aren’t creating more than us but it’s just from our stuff that we are doing wrong that they all of a sudden score a goal.”
It’s the fashion of these setbacks and the resulting devastation of realizing how quickly they went from something to nothing that puts a fright into Detroit center Ott.
“It stings obviously,” Ott said. “Those are the points you need to build towards the playoffs and is scares you when you’re missing those opportune moments. For us we have to find a way to correct that ship already. We’ve given those up and we’re not going to get them back.”
A hard practice Monday was designed to help remedy those maladies and ensure that the Wings can find ways to hang on to such valuable commodities as every point is in the raging battle for one of the eight Eastern Conference playoff spots.
“The parity in the league is so close,” Ott said. “We’re trying to score. They’re trying to score. It’s the first person obviously to crack in situations is who usually ends up on the wrong side. And what I mean by crack, it’s sticking with the details of our game and continue to stay strong. When you’re details stay strong to the end of the game you have a chance to at least get a point and you try to win again or you find that big goal in the last five minutes.
“Having that extra confidence to score a big goal is something we need to find right now.”
For the Wings at the moment, it’s about immediately correcting those errors. Otherwise, their current slide will become a free fall.
“The only way you’re going to get points is if you learn from those mistakes and those details continue to pick up through those opportunities going forward,” Ott said. “We’re going to be in a lot of one-goal games this year, there’s no question about it. Are we going to be the team that continues to lose them or are we going to be the team that looks to gain that extra point.
“I think from these moments in the past hopefully we can correct them right away and start looking for those big goals.”
Marchenko Out
The Wings expect defenseman Alexey Marchenko to miss 1-2 weeks due to an upper-body injury suffered in Sunday’s loss to the Flames.
“I guess I’d say today he’s going to be out at least a week but it’s not months, it’s going to be weeks,” Detroit coach Jeff Blashill said.
Brendan Smith will come back into the lineup to fill Marchenko’s spot.
First Look
The uniforms that the Wings will wear in the Jan. 1 Centennial Classic against the Toronto Maple Leafs outdoors at Toronto’s BMO Field were revealed Monday.
The color silver is used throughout the uniform as a nod to the League’s milestone season, most notably in a special version of the Winged Wheel front crest that incorporates silver tones into the normally white areas. Additionally, silver is found in the top stripe on both sleeves of the jersey, along with the trim in the uniform numbers.
The silver stripe found on both sleeves honors the 11 Stanley Cup championships in franchise history. Each individual championship season is listed in the silver stripes, with five championship seasons honored on the right sleeve (1936, 1937, 1943, 1950, 1952) and six on the left sleeve (1954, 1955, 1997, 1998, 2002, 2008). The four red stripes on both sleeves are a tribute to the original Detroit Cougars, who prominently displayed stripes in their jersey designs. The pants will also feature a version of the letter “D,” similar to the design worn originally by the Cougars during the team’s inaugural 1926-27 season.
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