While his teammates recharge for what they hope is a playoff push, Dylan Larkin will be in Florida this weekend for the All-Star Game. It's the eighth All-Star Game in a row in which the Red Wings will have a lone representative, a sharp reminder of where they stand in the NHL, in a deep Eastern Conference and in a loaded Atlantic Division. Asked how to identify a team poised to rise after the Wings went into the break with a 2-0 loss to the Islanders last Friday, Derek Lalonde said, "Really, really good players." You can name one or two on the current Red Wings without starting to question your own judgement. Thus the challenge in front of them.
"I'm not saying that sarcastically," said Lalonde, a two-time Cup winner with the Lightning. "I came from a team that quote-unquote 'rose,' and we had four or five of the best players in the world. For us to win, it's just gotta be a complete effort from everyone. All of our wins are full-team-effort wins. And we've had 'em, we just gotta hopefully string together a few more."
The Red Wings are playing in a division in which every team ahead of them aside from the Senators either has multiple All-Stars or multiple first overall picks on its roster. They are rebuilding as their rivals just keep reloading, like the organization is paying late fees for its 25-year playoff streak. Still, the Wings are on pace for their best season since that streak was intact, which raises the question: What has to happen for Detroit to make a playoff push over the next two months? In short, a lot.
The Red Wings trail the Penguins by seven points for the second wild card, though they do have games in hand on every team they're chasing. Thing is, they're chasing six teams. And they only play one of them in their 13 games between now and the March 3 trade deadline, by which time Steve Yzerman could … redecorate the roster. The goal on the other side of the break, said veteran David Perron, who will no doubt have trade suitors around the NHL, is "to come back for a big push before the deadline and give Steve something to think about."
For starters, the Red Wings can't afford to drop any more games to bottom-feeders, like they did last month against the Flyers, Coyotes and Blue Jackets. They have a back-to-back with the Canucks next weekend and another with the Senators at the end of this month. Winning at least three of those four feels essential to making a push. So does getting better results at LCA, where the Wings play their first three games out of the break. They've picked up a point per game on the road, which is good enough if they can pick up the pace at home.
When Lalonde was asked what he's looking for in the second half of the season, he pointed to better defense and better special teams. The latter is what pushed the Wings toward the top of the standings early in the season. Detroit's power play and penalty kill remain much improved from last season – couldn't get much worse – but both units have fallen to 21st in the NHL. The power play, in particular, has let the team down in too many big spots. To get more out of their special teams, the Wings will need more out of their special players.
There's nothing special about team defense. It requires discipline, commitment and the smarts to play as a unit. Lalonde has emphasized it from the literal moment he arrived. It's even more of an emphasis for the Red Wings, who lack the firepower to win wide-open games. That's not going to change in the next two months. But the Wings can gain ground by making small gains defensively: they're 4-13-4 this season when allowing at least four goals in regulation, 17-4-6 when allowing three or fewer. They've been pretty hard to beat when they stay within their structure.
"If we don't stay with it," said Perron, "it could go the other way on us."
On those nights their structure fails them, the Red Wings will need Ville Husso to bail them out. He was the other force behind their fast start. He had three shutouts and a .918 save percentage in his first 20 games, zero shutouts and a save percentage of .876 in 14 games since. The break should do him some good as he careens toward a career high in games played. Even the best teams need their goalie to steal a few wins. Lalonde would tell you as much: one of "the best players in the world" is Andrei Vasilevskiy.
And you know what else would help the Red Wings? A return to Detroit for Jakub Vrana, just as soon as he finds his game in Grand Rapids. And a return to form for Tyler Bertuzzi, who's yet to find his rhythm due to injuries. The Red Wings were counting on somet hing close to 30 goals this season from both of them. They've combined for two. Given that, it's a minor miracle this team isn't dead in the water.
Detroit has survived thanks to a career year by Dylan Larkin, who will have to take it up another notch in the months ahead, while Perron, Dominik Kubalik and Andrew Copp have helped fill in the offensive gaps. Rookie Jonatan Berggren has provided a welcome jolt of skill. But the Wings need to do more than replace what they're missing, which already wasn't enough. They need more "full team efforts," and more of them in a row. At some point, they need to rip off six or seven straight wins, no matter who's on the other bench.
In the words of Perron, who has a Stanley Cup and over 100 playoff games to his name, the Red Wings "gotta find a way to get comfortable" when the hockey gets hard.
"If we want to be part of those 16 teams, that's the type of hockey that you wind up playing more often than not, anyway," he said. "The heaviness and physicality and all that is going to keep increasing as we play more and more meaningful games."
That was Lalonde's overarching goal for the Red Wings this season: play meaningful hockey into the spring. It would mean a lot for a team that hasn't done so in seven years, and for several players who have never done so in the NHL. It's a tall order for a club that lacks stars in a division that's full of them, in a conference where it might take 95 points just to squeeze into the playoffs. The Wings are on pace for 85. When you're "not there yet in the standings," said Perron, "that usually means you're not there yet as a team."
But this is a better team than it's been in years past. It's deeper and getting healthier, and perhaps capable of measuring up to the task. The Wings are a longshot to make the playoffs, but can they make a push? Can they survive the deadline and give it a go? It's a lot to ask, even if it used to be so little. If they can give Yzerman "something to think about," maybe the Red Wings can Hockeytown a reason to believe.
"We haven't been able to do that in many years," said Larkin. "That's my hope, is to stay in it and to make going to the rink meaningful every day down the stretch."
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