How do the Red Wings Learn to Finish?

Rick Osentoski-Imagn Images

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Rick Osentoski-Imagn ImagesRick Osentoski-Imagn Images

The Red Wings ended their season on home ice as they began it;

Booed off by their own fans.

After another disappointing end to the season, for the fourth year in a row, the Red Wings have collapsed in March and slid out of playoff contention.

This year hurts, especially when the team felt out of the race a week and a half before the final blow actually landed and after parting ways with an unprotected first round pick in the upcoming draft, which may now land in the lottery odds.

Detroit came into the year looking to play tougher hockey, win more games, and get into the playoffs. They certainly won more games than last year, but the other two goals found themselves out of the Red Wings reach.

Nailing the Red Wings issues and faults down is almost impossible, with Todd McLellan and Steve Yzerman seemingly playing whack-a-mole as the team finds new and creative ways to show the same old problems after seemingly getting the last one fixed.

“Not just one thing”

Last year it was inconsistent goaltending and a leaky defense that sunk the ship in March.

This year, McLellan was still trying to find ways to push and prod his team into playing with energy.

That was in addition to dealing with his top two centers out of the lineup for a little under a two week period in March. Motivation at that stage of the year should never be a problem, and yet with this team, it’s their Achilles Heel.

The calendar flips February to March and so does the little switch inside their heads that says ‘play like you belong here.‘

The pressure simply gets to this team.

“We all know it, right? Marches and late seasons, you know,- I just don’t have a good answer for you.” Said Larkin. “When it gets tight, we come up short…”

Whether it’s a lack of depth scoring down the home stretch or stupid mistakes late in games, the Red Wings seemingly haven’t retained a single lesson this year about playing like a competitive hockey team.

Detroit went 7-10-3 between March 1 and now. The Wings were 6-10-2 since the NHL trade deadline, when they looked to have acquired a steadying, experienced hand for their top 4 in Justin Faulk.

That same night, before either of the Red Wings trade deadline acquisitions even stepped foot in Detroit, Larkin went down with a lower body injury.

In the 7 games he missed, the Red Wings went 3-3-1. They were 3-7-1 when he came back, while he clearly battled through excruciating pain, having to crawl off-ice at points in the first couple of games back.

Are you going to take that…?

When the going got tough, the Red Wings crumbled like a 100-year-old cookie.

Want the stats to prove it?

The Red Wings, in games leading up to their elimination from the playoffs, were 15-25-2 when the opponent scored first. They were 7-19-0 when they were trailing after the first period, and an egregious 5-28-2 when trailing after the second period. They had a paltry 6-5-3 record when tied after the second frame for that matter, with only one of those wins coming on home ice.

On the opposite end, the Red Wings were 28-2-3 when they led going into the third period, showing that the team seemingly had no problem piling on against bad opponents.

“When we went to training camp, we had three goals in mind. One was to get physically harder to play against. The second was to build up the resilience and the mental toughness. And the third one was game management. And I think we were making gains in those areas,” Said McLellan after the final home loss.

“But since the Olympic break, we didn’t have much of that. And it ended up costing us.”

If there’s one thing this team needs to learn coming out of training camp this year, it’s how to respond when you get punched in the mouth.

It’s been years of them quietly taking it.

Maybe learn to respond with a punch of your own.

Or if you can’t, bring in someone who can.

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