Red Wings Question Their Own Mental Toughness

Nathan Ray Seebeck-Imagn Images

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Nathan Ray Seebeck-Imagn ImagesNathan Ray Seebeck-Imagn Images

It’s a question that certainly everyone is pondering, and one that needed to be posed as the Detroit Red Wings held their locker cleanout day on Friday at Little Caesars Arena.

As a team, are the Red Wings mentally tough enough?

“That’s a fair question,” Detroit captain Dylan Larkin said.

The captain then went on to point out that when the going got tough, the Red Wings, in fact, weren’t tough enough.

“I feel like when it got tight, we also got tight,” Larkin said. “We just got tight as a group and allowed teams to get back into it.”

On Jan. 25, the Red Wings led the Atlantic Division. They were 12 points clear of the playoff cutoff line.

Detroit finished the season on April 15, sitting seven points out of a playoff spot. Since the Red Wings couldn’t win the tiebreaker for the second Eastern Conference Wild Card, they would’ve needed eight more points to be a playoff team. So, in essence, that was a 20-point swing for Detroit in less than three months.

Face It, The Red Wings Choked

Choking is a phrase often utilized to describe spectacular failures in the sporting realm. Mentioning it in relation to a team’s performance is the lowest of insults.

While no Red Wings player was invoking the C word to assess this season’s failure to make the Stanley Cup playoffs, some were certainly beating around that bush.

“Well, I think it’s clear that when the games get tighter, it’s tough for this team to be successful,” Red Wings defenseman Ben Chiarot said. “When the stakes kind of get higher, things get tough for us. We don’t succeed in those situations.

“Group mental toughness, I would say, is just a starting point.”

If there ever was a year during Detroit’s now 10-year run of failure to qualify for postseason play that the drought seemed certain to end, it was this season. From Game 26 through Game 65, the Red Wings assembled a 40-game stretch in which they never went consecutive games without securing a point.

“For about 65 games this year, there wasn’t a second when I didn’t think this team wasn’t going to be a playoff team,” Chiarot said. “And then, as we got into the last six, seven weeks of the season, things started to go sideways on us, and we pissed it away.

“We really did.”

Detroit Squandered Too Many Points

Of all games, funny that Chiarot should single out Game 65. That night in Florida, the Red Wings were leading the Panthers 3-2 late in the third period. Florida scored twice in the final 1:30 of regulation to win 4-3.

In a span of 90 seconds, the Wings went from getting two points to getting none.

“That kind of thing that happened over and over again down the stretch,” Red Wings center Andrew Copp said. “And that’s truly the reason that we’re sitting here.”

The question of why it keeps happening is the real concern. Is it simply another element of the growing pains this team must endure?

“You hope so,” Chiarot said. “You hope it’s not a deeper issue?

“Is it just experience the team needs? Is it the makeup of the guys in the room?”

Ultimately, it was left to Copp to confirm the elephant in the room, and go where everyone was thinking.

“We weren’t mentally tough enough,” Copp said. “And that’s why we’re not in the playoffs.”

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