DETROIT — Dylan Larkin brought it up Saturday night, after the Detroit Red Wings reached the midpoint of their season with a disappointing 4-3 loss to the Columbus Blue Jackets at Little Caesars Arena.
If they don’t go on a run relatively soon, they could be sellers yet again ahead of the 2023 NHL Trade Deadline on March 3.
The Red Wings have missed the Stanley Cup Playoffs the past six seasons and are 18-16-7 this season, sixth in the Atlantic Division and six points behind the New York Islanders for the second wild card in the Eastern Conference.
Larkin is their captain, No. 1 center, leading scorer and representative for the 2023 Honda NHL All-Star Game at FLA LIVE Arena in Sunrise, Florida, on Feb. 4 (3 p.m. ET; ABC, ESPN+, CBC, SN, TVAS). But he can become an unrestricted free agent after the season.
So can forwards Tyler Bertuzzi, Adam Erne, Oskar Sundqvist and Pius Suter; defensemen Olli Maatta, Jordan Oesterle and Jake Wallman; and goaltenders Magnus Hellberg and Alex Nedeljkovic.
“We care, and [we] care about trying to turn this around, trying to make the playoffs,” said Larkin, who grew up in the Detroit area and is in his eighth season with the Red Wings. “It hasn’t been talked about. [about] enough [on the outside]. It’s talked about in our locker room, and we care about that. We’re trying to make a strong push here before the trade deadline.”
You had to wonder what Red Wings general manager Steve Yzerman was thinking as he watched the game Saturday.
The Red Wings had won against a top-10 team in each of their past two games, defeating the Winnipeg Jets 7-5 on Tuesday and the Toronto Maple Leafs 4-1 on Thursday.
They had a chance for a three-game winning streak before a good crowd at home, and their opponents were the Blue Jackets, who were 2-12-0 in their previous 14 games and entered Saturday tied for last in the NHL.
But the Red Wings fell behind 3-0 in the first period and 4-0 in the second period, and they heard a few boos as they left the ice for the second intermission. It wasn’t until the Blue Jackets forward Mathieu Olivier accidentally put the puck into his own net 5:50 into the third period that they showed some life, but their comeback fell short.
“We finally decided to show up in the third and ran out of time,” Larkin said. “It’s unfortunate we just didn’t start. We didn’t battle enough, let their top line have time and space, let them just float through without stopping and making it hard on them.”
The Red Wings have had a tendency to dig holes for themselves. Coach Derek Lalonde said it goes back to their compete level. Ultimately, it goes back to their talent level.
“I think you’ve seen what we are,” Lalonde said. “If we compete and we execute — and our compete and our battle is in that nine out of 10, 10 out of 10 — we can play with anyone. But we’re not good enough not to do that against anyone.”
In the offseason, the Red Wings hired Lalonde and added Andrew Copp, Dominik Kubalik and David Perron at forward; Maatta and Ben Chiarot on defense; and Ville Husso in goal. There is no doubt they are deeper, and Husso has given them excellent goaltending at times.
But at times their 5-on-5 play has been good and their special teams have struggled, and at others, it has been the opposite. They have had one three-game winning streak and one four-gamer. They have the same win total and one more point than they did through 41 games last season, when they were 18-17-6.
Injuries have been an issue, but the Red Wings have gotten healthier lately. Fabbri has played five games after missing the first 35 recovering from ACL surgery he had last March. Bertuzzi has played three after missing 16 with an upper-body injury (after missing 13 earlier this season).
“It’s clear that we’ve progressed,” Larkin said. “We’re deeper. But we’ve been talking about … getting on a run and stringing some wins together, and tonight happens. It’s frustrating.
“That’s kind of been the story of the season. We win two or three, and then we can’t find the fourth and fifth and get on a nice run. We need to find that, and we’re talking about it. We ‘re trying. We just… We need to do it pretty soon here.”
The Red Wings have 20 games left before the trade deadline, starting with the defending Stanley Cup champion Colorado Avalanche at Ball Arena in Denver on Monday (3 pm ET; BSDET, ALT, ESPN+, SN, SN360).
“I don’t care if we’re playing the No. 1 team in the League, the No. 32 team in the League,” Lalonde said. “We have to have a high compete and execution level, and it’ll be the same thing against them on Monday.”
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