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Is it too early to suggest it's all over? |
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At what point do they wave the white flag?
Better yet, simply draw a finish line, wave a checkered flag and put an end to this misery.
Or are there all still some out there who are naive enough to believe that the Detroit Red Wings maintain a realistic shot at extending their run of Stanley Cup playoff appearances to 26 seasons?
Another night arrived during which the Wings were supposed to dig deep, do the things they need to do and find a way to battle out of their current slump.
Another night ended with another disappointing loss and even more questions than answers, this one a 4-1 setback Thursday at Joe Louis Arena to the Los Angeles Kings that left Detroit 0-3-1 on its current five-game homestand.
Saturday, the Wings finish their longest run of consecutive home games all season with a date against the Anaheim Ducks.
Oh yeah, chalk that one up in the win column right now - for Anaheim.
“We’re a desperate team,” Detroit right-winger Gus Nyquist insisted.
Really? Because you sure could have fooled the masses on that point.
“We need points,” Nyquist continued.
OK, we’ll give you that one.
“When you look at the standings - we’ve talked about it a lot here lately - you can’t fall behind too much because it takes time to make up ground,” Nyquist said.
They have fallen too far behind - nine points in arrears of the last Eastern Conference playoff position and with four teams between them and that spot.
“We’ve got to go on a run,” Nyquist said. “We’re a desperate team.”
Yes they do need to get rolling but as far as desperation is concerned, even CSI couldn’t locate the DNA to confirm evidence of that being fact.
In their last five home games, the Wings are 0-4-1 and have scored five goals.
That’s not desperate. That’s just desperately bad.
A year ago on this date, just one team that was nine or more points out of a playoff spot - the Ducks - rallied to earn a postseason position and they went 37-12-6 the rest of the way.
Anyone anticipating the Wings playing .727 hockey from now until the end of the season?
Didn’t think so.
This Detroit slide has escalated from bump in the road, to slump, to full-on free fall very rapidly.
The Wings are 0-3-1 in their last four games, 2-4-2 in their last eight, 5-8-3 in their last 16 and 7-12-4 in their last 23.
Any way you slice it, that isn’t the type of hockey that finishes with a playoff berth at the end of the rainbow.
In 10 of those 23 games, including all four on this homestand, the Wings have finished the night with one goal or fewer to their credit.
“We can’t find a way to get the puck to the net,” Detroit captain Henrik Zetterberg said.
They can’t score at even strength and they can’t score with the man advantage. In its last eight games, Detroit’s power play is 1-for-24.
“I don’t think there’s any doubt we need to find a way to get the puck inside and get the puck around the net and create more chaos,” Detroit coach Jeff Blashill said of his team’s power-play unit. “Our problem is, in my opinion, we don’t have enough setup time, whether it’s from not winning enough battles when we’re facing pressure, or whether it’s from self-induced turnovers, we’re just not spending enough time in the zone.
“When we do finally get it set up, it’s obviously in the league, teams do a good job of trying to keep you outside. We’ve got to find a way to get to the inside.”
You could say the same thing about the playoff race. The Wings have got to find a way to get inside.
At this point, you’d have to wager that the odds of that happening are at best an outside chance.
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