Reserved with the media, Lucas Raymond is especially quiet when the Red Wings are losing. It drains him of joy. He was glum Tuesday morning while discussing the best stretch of hockey of his young career: "Right now, it's pretty hard to think about."
The 21-year-old has averaged a point per game for the last two months and "I want to be a producing player and reliable that way, but I just feel our only main focus and what’s on my mind is turning this around," Raymond said.
After winning six straight to surge up the standings, the Red Wings dropped seven in a row and eight of nine to tumble out of a playoff spot. They look lost without captain and No. 1 center Dylan Larkin; Raymond is one of their only forwards who does not.
"He’s (been) our best player, I think," said Moritz Seider. "You can see, even in tough stretches, he finds a way to get on the board, stay in it, play the right way. I think he’s just taken a real big step compared to last year."
Playing the right way is imperative for a team that lacks high-end talent. Even with the depth they've crowed about when playing well, the Wings cannot skill their way to victories. They have to be on their game every night, which is to say on top of their opponent and above the puck. They have to play with speed. With Larkin sidelined by a lower-body injury, Derek Lalonde admitted that "there's probably one consistent guy where I know what he's gonna give us, and that's Raymond."
"Maybe DP (David Perron)," he added. "I hate mentioning names, but those are the two guys that I can walk into a game and know what we're going to get from them. And it's not good enough."
It was flat-out ugly in the first period Tuesday night, when the Red Wings were dominated by the Blue Jackets and trailed the worst team in the East 2-0 on home ice. They were booed into the locker room, where Lalonde said he was "flabbergasted, shocked, disappointed" and let his players have it. He told them "it felt like we had quit." It looked like they had, too, outshot 20-5 thanks to careless plays across the ice.
"I just couldn't believe it," said Lalonde, as vexed as we've heard him in two seasons in Detroit. "And they didn't quit, obviously."
Lucas Raymond didn't quit. He drew a hooking penalty on a slick zone entry early in the second, then converted a one-timer on the power play to draw the Wings within one. His legs seemed to get lighter as the game wore on, like when he walked defenseman Zach Werenski in the slot and nearly scored a highlight-reel goal on the backhand. Raymond is oozing confidence with the puck, daring to make plays. It bounced to his stick off the pads of goalie Danil Tarasov with the Wings trailing by a goal in the dying seconds, and Raymond buried it to send the game to overtime.
It was his 24th goal of the season in his 69th game, a new career high. It was also the biggest goal of the season for the Red Wings, who couldn't afford to drop a gimme in a tightening wild-card race in the East. Raymond punctuated it by dropping to a knee and pumping up the crowd, his emotions heightened by "the time of year and what we're chasing as a team." For now, the Wings are back above the playoff cut-line, one point clear of the Caps (who have two games in hand).
A smaller winger who can dazzle on the perimeter, Raymond scored both his goals Tuesday night by getting to the center of the ice. He betrayed a smile at the postgame podium when Patrick Kane, whose shot created the rebound for Raymond's game-tying goal, said, "Ray's been pretty automatic there in the middle. I told him if he keeps scoring in there, he's gonna have to play there his whole career, so he better be careful."
Raymond is up to 59 points, also a career high, and 25 in his last 24 games. And he's done it lately without the help of a No. 1 center, playing at times with J.T. Compher and others with Joe Veleno. As Lalonde said Tuesday morning, Raymond "was driven by Larkin" as a rookie and for parts of last season and has "probably played 80 percent of his career on Larkin’s wing."
"And now, with Dylan being out, he's literally driven us to stay in this battle," Lalonde said after Detroit's 4-3 win that was sealed in overtime by Kane.
Raymond is at the point where he's no longer playing on somebody else's line, though that could quickly change when Larkin returns. He's the headliner himself. After bulking up last summer, Raymond has become more assertive, said Lalonde. He makes "the hard play" more consistently, which allows him to spend more time with the puck -- and make the pretty plays that stand out.
It's a 180 from this point last season, when Raymond "was tiring, he was not very good," said Lalonde, and the Wings "were worried how much we could play him down the stretch."
"Been probably our most dynamic player, which is a really good sign," Lalonde said.
None of this pardons the Wings for their first-period face-plant against the Blue Jackets or their general meltdown without Larkin. They were sloppy and slow out of the gate Tuesday night, like they had nothing to play for. And while they eventually pushed back, "it means nothing if we don't get a little more battle to start and stop feeling sorry for ourselves," said Lalonde. The next game is a huge one, at home against the Islanders.
"We got back to the way we were supposed to play," Raymond said. "I think in the first we were hesitant, playing a little bit on our heels, playing slow, and that doesn't work in this league. So, full pace forward and got momentum."
If anyone saves the Red Wings' playoff hopes, it will be Larkin, who's due back soon. In the meantime, Raymond is doing his best to keep them alive. He's 21 and growing up before our eyes, a rising player who's starting to take the wheel in Detroit.
"I think he benefited a little bit from Dylan, because Dylan's a driver of a line," said Lalonde. "But he's been excellent of late -- and thank God."