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Been there, done that: Wings have won with it all on the line before |
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When it comes to been there and done that, there’s plenty the Detroit Red Wings are able to check off their hockey bucket list.
Playing the last game of the NHL regular season with their playoff lives on the line is one of them.
In the final tilt of the 2012-13 season, the Wings went to Dallas to face the Stars aware that it was win or go home.
Henrik Zetterberg and Pavel Datsyuk each collected three points as the Wings blanked the Stars 3-0, earning their way into the playoffs.
As they take the ice Saturday afternoon to face the New York Rangers at Madison Square Garden in the exact same scenario, the Wings are utilizing that past experience as a motivational tool.
“Just having the confidence of being in the situation before and being successful, even though it was several years ago, you can still draw on how you felt mentally coming into the game,” said Jimmy Howard, who will get the start in goal for Detroit Saturday.
History Lesson
In their last game of the 1969-70 NHL season – curiously, also the only other NHL campaign prior to this one in which no Canadian teams qualified for the Stanley Cup playoffs – the Wings played their final game of the season on a Sunday afternoon at Madison Square Garden.
They had already clinched a playoff spot and rested several players. The Rangers needed to win in order to make the playoffs and pounded Detroit goalie Roger Crozier with 65 shots in a 9-5 victory.
Saturday afternoon, the roles are reversed. The Rangers are in the playoffs and the Wings need a win to get there. And the Rangers will play without defensemen Ryan McDonagh, the team captain, and Dan Girardi and forwards Mats Zuccarello and Viktor Stalberg, all reported to be nursing injuries. As well, No. 1 goalie Henrik Lundqvist will get the day off and back-up Antti Raanta will start in the New York net.
Now it’s the Wings who need to take care of business.
“We don’t want to depend on any other teams to help us to get in,” Detroit defenseman Danny DeKeyser said. “We just want to make sure that we win and take care of our own business.
“You mentioned 2013, we had to go into Dallas the last game of the season. We put in a good effort to win that game.
“We plan on doing the same tomorrow.”
Andersson Recalled
Detroit has recalled forward Joakim Andersson from AHL Grand Rapids for Saturday’s game, though the team held an optional skate Friday so there was no word as to whether he might play.
Left-winger Justin Abdelkader left Thursday’s 5-1 loss at Boston with what the team termed a lower-body injury, but indications Friday from team sources were that Abdelkader was expected to play Saturday.
Andersson recorded 1-2-3 totals and a plus-one rating in 28 games with the Wings earlier this season.
Bad Omen?
Dylan Larkin leads the Red Wings in goals with 23 and will be the first rookie to do so for a season since Mike Foligno in 1979-80 if it stays that way through Saturday’s game, and that could be bad news for Detroit.
Larkin would be the sixth rookie to lead the team in goals, and on four of the five previous occasions that this happened, the Wings missed the playoffs.
They were out in 1979-80 when Foligno scored 36 goals and in 1965-76 when Michel Bergeron scored 32 times. The same held true in 1970-71 when Tom Webster scored a team-leading 30 times and in 1937-38 when rookie Carl Liscombe topped the Wings with 14 goals.
The lone exception was in 1977-78. Dale McCourt, the first player chosen in the 1977 NHL draft, led the Wings with 33 goals that season and Detroit reached the playoffs, losing in the quarter-finals to the eventual Stanley Cup champion Montreal Canadiens.
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