By the end, most of the fans had trudged out of the building. Those who remained booed the Red Wings as the final seconds ticked off the clock in their fourth straight loss, a new sound in the Todd McLellan era but an all-too-familiar sight these days in March. It happened the last two years, and it's happening again, a tailspin into the trade deadline that puts the playoffs in doubt.
"Just can't find a win," said Dylan Larkin after the Red Wings fell 4-2 to Utah Thursday night.
The deadline is Friday afternoon. After plowing through January and February, the Wings have hit a wall. They have not given Steve Yzerman a good reason to invest in this roster -- his roster. He will be hard-pressed to prioritize the present when it looks so much like the recent past.
They rose into a playoff spot in February of 2023, only to fall into a six-game skid that bridged the deadline. Yzerman sold, and the Red Wings sunk. They roared into a playoff spot last February, only to fall into a six-game skid that bridged the deadline. Yzerman stood pat, and the Red Wings weren't good enough to finish the job on their own.
Here we go again?
Larkin, understandably, didn't want to go there. Doesn't want to entertain the notion. He wants to believe that if you "zoom out from Christmas time -- we talked about it as a group yesterday -- and look at how far we’ve come," the Red Wings have indeed "made a case to continue to push this thing and keep playing for the playoffs -- and get in," he said.
Trouble is, they led the wild card race entering last weekend. Now they're fourth, with two teams to jump in the Rangers and Senators. The Canadiens have caught them from behind. The Bruins are on their heels. The Blue Jackets are two points ahead, in an exceptionally crowded field. Detroit has a goal differential of minus-18, and its playoffs odds have dipped under 20 percent.
McLellan has stressed that the Wings get to "write our own story," as this year's team is different than last year's. But the core players are the same, going back to 2023. A sense of dread might be creeping into the dressing room, like they're doomed to this fate. Asked about combatting it, Larkin said, "You have to play. You can’t be looking outside (of yourself)."
"You have to win hockey games to get into the playoffs. You can’t scoreboard watch, you can’t hope it happens. You gotta go out there and do it. There’s still time, but we don’t have many home games left. We have to capitalize on a chance like tonight, and I thought we missed the opportunity," he said.
The Red Wings face the hardest remaining schedule in the NHL. Just one of their final 20 games comes against a team that is out of the playoff picture -- next week against the Sabres -- and they're down to seven games at home. They have played six games since the 4 Nations break against teams either in the race or in the playoffs, and lost five of them. Yzerman is watching all of this from above, each game another data point in his decision on Friday.
McLellan said the team's slide, which comes on the heels of a 17-4-2 run, "doesn’t necessarily change the approach" to the deadline. The Wings could use a stabilizer on the blue line to lessen the glare on the bottom pair, and/or a flexible piece up front to help replace Andrew Copp. They could generally use more of an edge, which made it doubly painful when Carter Mazur was injured two shifts into his NHL debut. They could certainly use a young defenseman like Bowen Byram, but the Sabres will want a lot -- and even more to trade him to a division rival. Same goes for center Dylan Cozens.
"The organization will do whatever they can to make the team better for Saturday, for Sunday and for training camp next year and moving forward. It’s not just a short-term look, and it's not just a long-term look," McLellan said. "Looking at the group as a whole, can we find players that fit our team better? Can we find players that will make us better now? Can we find players that will help us with chemistry? That’s all talked about all the time."
The Wings played well for most of Thursday's game, especially the first two periods. They doubled up Utah in shots, and generated far more chances. They skated and forechecked with more authority than they did in Tuesday's loss to Carolina. They deserved a better score than 2-2 entering the third. But they deserved the result they got when a couple lapses in their own zone led to pucks in their net.
Detroit's power play was uncharacteristically dull, and its goaltending, in this case Alex Lyon, was typically leaky. It's not a matter of investment, if you ask McLellan: "I can tell you the group genuinely cares. Sometimes I think they care too much and they tighten up and they’re afraid to swing the bat, if you will."
"I don't know what it’s felt like in the past," he said, "but I'd like to think that we’ve learned from the past and we’re mentally stronger."
If the past is any indication, Yzerman is unlikely to add to the roster in a serious way Friday. The Red Wings haven't earned it, even while pulling themselves back into the race. They've become too much "like a ping-pong ball," as McLellan put it, bouncing between good and bad, between building and fixing.
"When we were winning," he said, "we were consistently moving forward and not doing a lot of repair work. We’re doing it now."
Here we go again.