Before Chris Chelios Night became Patrick Kane Night in Chicago, Wayne Gretzky stopped by the Red Wings locker room. NHL luminaries bounced around the United Center, followed everywhere by cameras. Red Wings assistant coach Jay Varady described it as "a rock concert with a hockey game." For Dylan Larkin, "it felt like an All-Star Game. Or, I would imagine, if you made it to The Finals."
The lights are brightening again on the Red Wings. That's partly "The Kaner Effect," as Larkin called it last week after Kane's overtime winner against the Avs, but it's also the product of success. Detroit isn't just on track to make the playoffs for the first time in seven years; it's starting to run with the juggernauts in the Atlantic. With another victory Tuesday night against the Caps, one of the teams now chasing them in the standings, the Wings will have their first six-game win streak since the Ken Holland era.
"I think we’ve had the belief in here for a while and known we’ve got a good team," said defenseman Ben Chiarot. "I’d say when you string those wins together, you beat a team like Colorado, it shows that you can play with anybody and it breathes confidence into the room. And you just try to ride that momentum."
Detroit's last six-game streak came in 2018-19, in meaningless games at the end of another losing season. Its last five-game streak, aside from the one it went on at the start of this season, came last February before another largely inevitable sell-off at the deadline. This one feels different. Lalonde said as much after the Red Wings' 6-1 rout of the Blues last Saturday, which, at the time, pushed their record this season against playoff teams to 16-15-1.
The Wings' expectations for themselves have changed -- "a lot," said Larkin. He points first to Lalonde and says the coach told the team last year "that we were going to be in a position at this time next year where we need to win a hockey game, and that's exactly where we are." Larkin, in his fourth season as captain, also credits the players around him, who "want to be here and want to play for each other."
"We expect to win," Larkin said. "Going into every night, we feel we have the locker room to go out there and win and be competitive with any team in the league. It’s really something that’s been built from last year when Newsy came and it’s been a process, but we’re a confident team right now. We feel good about all four lines, all three goalies and all of our defensemen."
That smacks of hockey speak. It also feels true, which is the first time we can say that about the Red Wings -- or they can say it about themselves -- since a playoff berth was their birthright. The blueline still leaves something to be desired behind the top pair, but Detroit is so much deeper there than in years past that Justin Holl, who played in 80 games last season for a Maple Leafs team that racked up 111 points, hasn't played a game for the Wings in nearly a month. Meanwhile, top prospect Simon Edvinsson continues to sharpen his game in Grand Rapids.
In the crease, Alex Lyon has been this year's out-of-nowhere goalie. There's always one, right? The former AHL nobody is tied for sixth in the NHL in save percentage (.916) with two-time Vezina winner Sergei Bobrovsky, who makes $10 million a year with the Panthers. Lyon, Bobrovsky's backup last season, and will make less than a million this year with the Wings. And James Reimer has been equally valuable of late, rebounding from a bout of poor play that afflicted an injury-ravaged roster in December to bookend the current win streak with strong performances in Calgary and Chicago.
"When you look at everything that has turned us into being this successful on this little run we're on, the number one thing you can probably point to is our consistency in net," said Lalonde. "It feels like they're feeding off each other."
The Wings are feeding on the teams below them, which is exactly how you climb the standings. They're 9-3-3 against non-playoff teams in the East, 9-2-2 against non-playoff teams in the West. Takin' care of business (every day). They also lead the NHL with 11 wins after trailing in the third period, including another last Sunday in Chicago when one legendary Blackhawk stole the show from another, even after Chelios kindly asked Kane not to. The Show starts when Kane says it does.
"It's something about this group," Kane said after burying his former team in OT on the night it raised Chelios' No. 7 to the rafters. "We just find a way."
"We’ve come up clutch, we’ve won in different ways, different guys scoring big goals," Larkin said Tuesday. "When we get down, we’ve been consistent in how hard we’ve played ... and we put the puck in the net at big moments. I can’t really put one thing on it, but it’s been special this year, that’s for sure."
The Red Wings' scoring depth has carried them all year. Lalonde can't get through a press conference without mentioning it over and over, for good reason. They likely won't have a single player crack 90 points (possibly even 80) this season, but they already have 12 players with double-digit goals, most in the NHL, and could finish with as many as 14. Think about that: 18 skaters dress each night. The obvious comparison is last year's Kraken, who didn't have a player exceed 70 points but racked up 100 points as a team and reached the second round of the playoffs with 13 double-digit goal scorers.
Hockeytown is taking notice. An octopus even splattered onto the ice in Chicago. These sights and sounds are invigorating for Larkin, who was left hanging his head two years ago when a fan hurled a Red Wings jersey onto the ice at Little Caesars Arena toward the end of an embarrassing loss to the Coyotes. The fans' disgust was Larkin's dejection. As someone who grew up watching the Wings win Stanley Cups, "we show up like that at home, we’re going to get booed," he said. They're showing up to cheers again at LCA.
"There’s more energy around the city and with the fans, and it’s carried into our room and we feel that," Larkin said. "We’re excited to be playing tonight and to have a busy March with a lot of meaningful hockey games."
"It’s what you play for," said Chiarot, who has played in the Cup Finals. "These important games to get into the playoffs, that’s the fun part of the year."
Lalonde says the Wings have "a quiet confidence" as a group, which is evident in the way "they handle a bad period, a bad shift, a bad call." They don't get derailed. When they fall behind, even in the third, they don't cheat for offense and chase the game. They trust their system and themselves, "where we’re at and what we’re doing," said Lalonde, and lean on their depth to tilt the ice in their favor.
"That’s probably the major shift in the maturity of this group," he said.
Lalonde sensed the Wings start to believe when they got healthy in January and kicked off the month with a strong trip out West. That was the start of this 15-4-2 surge during which they've jumped six teams in the East and built a seven-point cushion on a playoff spot. There's work to be done -- "lots of it," said Chiarot -- and that's the best part. The job, and perhaps the season, is just getting started.