DETROIT – Detroit Red Wings captain Dylan Larkin is too accustomed to late-season games that have no playoff implications for his team, but he can’t accept it.
It is even more difficult when the Red Wings aren’t in those games until the end, like in a pair of losses this weekend, including Sunday’s 6-1 defeat against the Florida Panthers at Little Caesars Arena.
The Red Wings were realistically out of the postseason picture months ago, officially eliminated eight days earlier. This is their sixth consecutive season without playoff hockey and Larkin has suffered through all of it.
“This is brutal,” Larkin said. “It’s not fun packing your bag at the end of the year and going and playing in the World Championship or doing whatever. You want to play playoff hockey.
“We got a lot of guys that haven’t been through this, but you got to remember it. You got to take it in and put it on yourself to come back and have a great year next year and make sure this doesn’t happen again. It can’t happen much longer.”
The Red Wings (29-37-10) have six games remaining, the next three also against elite clubs (Tampa Bay, Florida, Pittsburgh), halfway through a treacherous six-game stretch.
“We’re running out of runway,” Larkin said. “We have tough competition, but we have two weeks left to figure something out and end on a positive note to go into the summer.”
Several players needing to show they deserve to be here next season are running out of time.
“We have to be up for it, or else it’s going to be like tonight and against New York (4-0 loss Saturday), where we don’t create much,” Larkin said. “We have to challenge ourselves. I’ve said it a lot. Someone can’t push you out the door like it’s minor hockey and give you candy after the game. You have to take pride in wearing the winged wheel and going out and fighting for a job next year. There’s plenty of guys in our locker room that have to do that. I would say everyone. You have to find that yourself.”
The Panthers (54-15-6) won their 10th in a row and tied Colorado for the NHL lead with 114 points.
The Red Wings played a strong first period and kept the league’s most explosive offense off the scoreboard for the first 25 minutes. Florida then scored in a quick bursts – goals 1:30 apart early in the second period and 28 seconds apart late in the period – to break it open. Alex Nedeljkovic, coming off a 46-save shutout at Carolina Thursday, was helpless to stop the onslaught.
“We gave up too many easy chances on a couple of mistakes; the second you don’t do it right against this team they’re getting a chance,” Red Wings coach Jeff Blashill said. “Against this team you either have to be perfect or you have to score, and we weren’t perfect, and we didn’t score, so then you’re down 4-0.”
Pius Suter scored Detroit’s lone goal, in the third period, after his team had fallen behind by five.
The Red Wings are in danger of experiencing the same in several of their remaining games.
“It’s a real challenge when you’re playing so many teams with elite players,” Blashill said. “These honestly should be great challenges. You want to see what you’re about as an individual. How good are you going to be as a player and how can we as a group show that we’re better?”
More: Red Wings can’t stop Panthers’ power surge
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April 18, 2022 at 06:11AM
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Red Wings, Dylan Larkin caught in vicious cycle: ‘This is brutal’ - MLive.com
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