SUNRISE, FL – First up is getting over being 90 seconds from winning only to come away empty handed. Then it’s figuring out how to march on.
The Detroit Red Wings (36-22-7) continue their trip Thursday, March 12 at the Tampa Bay Lightning, dinged by a 4-3 loss on Tuesday at the Florida Panthers after holding a one-goal lead until the last couple minutes. With nearly everyone right around them in the standings winning, the Wings fell into a wild-card spot, only three points up on the Columbus Blue Jackets. The Wings are still in a good position – putting up a .500 points percentage down the stretch will get them to 96 points – but winning tight games is vital this time of year.
“Points are critical, right?” Red Wings forward Patrick Kane said. “So it would have been nice to at least get one tonight, especially with the situation we’re in. Just a lot of ups and downs throughout the game.
“I still have a lot of confidence in this group. It’s going to be a tough feeling tonight, but we have to get over it. That’s just the way it is this time of year. It [stinks] right now, but we have to learn from it, because it comes down to those little moments when we have to come through.”
Their challenge grew when Andrew Copp suffered an injury to his left leg, less than a week after Dylan Larkin hurt his right leg. That’s the team’s top two centers banged up. There’s no firm timeline on either yet, with coach Todd McLellan decribing Copp as doubtful for the Lightning game and Larkin doubtful for a return on the trip (though he is traveling with the team to receive treatment). Masking being without those two is a big ask, but the Panthers have been without their top center, Aleksander Barkov, all season and just beat the Wings twice in one week.
“It’s a big ask, but nobody’s feeling sorry for the Red Wings,” McLellan said. “And nobody in the locker room should feel sorry. We have a job to do. irst thing we have to do is recover from this loss. And then we have to figure out how to plug some holes.
“I thought when you look at the game tonight, after Copper went out, we had a pretty good effort. That doesn’t mean we can’t have that night in and night out without them.”
The Wings were in good shape until the last 90 seconds, when Simon Edvinsson failed to clear the puck and Matthew Tkachuk found Carter Verhaeghe for a tying goal. The two paired up to score again with just under 15 seconds to play, when Verhaeghe’s shot deflected in off new arrival Justin Faulk.
“We had a faceoff in our zone, and a bit of a scramble,” McLellan said. “I understand individuals looking to shoot in an open net, but when you’re the last guy back with a forest in front of you, that puck has to find a way at least to gain the blue line. And I would prefer not shooting for the net.
“And then the winner, in my opinion, too many men on the ice, but I’m not the referee.”
The Wings are now 2-2-1 in March. It has been a cruel month for them the past two years, each one yielding just eight points to choke off the Wings’ playoff hopes. This year, they looked poised to overturn the trend, but the uncertainty around Larkin and now Copp is another strain.
“The good thing for us tomorrow is we have an off day,” McLellan said. “We’ll get energized. It’ll be a sunny day in Tampa. We’ll get outside and guys can relax. We’ll get back to the rink on Thursday morning and put some lines together for whoever’s playing and get after it.
“There’s nothing else we can do. You think about the negative, but as soon as that gets into your head, you’re in trouble. So let’s move on.”
Contact Helene St. James at hstjames@freepress.com.
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This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Detroit Red Wings: ‘Nobody in the locker room should feel sorry’
Reporting by Helene St. James, Detroit Free Press / Detroit Free Press
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
