Detroit – For the 10th consecutive season, the Red Wings aren’t going to the NHL playoffs.
A decade of missing the NHL’s Stanley Cup tournament, after 25 consecutive seasons of making the playoffs and sustaining a dynasty.
Now it’s totally gone the other direction.
Jesper Bratt scored his second goal of the game at 16 minutes, 26 seconds, breaking the tie, and Dawson Mercer added an empty-net goal Saturday, giving New Jersey a 5-3 victory and sending the Wings home for the spring.
BOX SCORE: Devils 5, Red Wings 3
Bratt scored on a feed from Jack Hughes on a 2-on-1 rush, shocking the fans at Little Caesars Arena, while breaking the tie. Mercer scored into an empty net with 59.3 seconds remaining, clinching the outcome, igniting a chorus of boos at the end of the game.
“It’s a microcosm of the year, really, and where we are as an organization,” coach Todd McLellan said. “We have to get better top to bottom and execute better. We do.”
Captain Dylan Larkin blamed himself on a blown defensive coverage leading to the Devils’ fourth goal. Larkin looked shocked and disappointed, as the reality of missing the playoffs hit hard once again.
“I keep thinking about that fourth goal and I can’t make that mistake at that part of the game and part of the season,” Larkin said. “We didn’t get the job done.”
Earning at least one point would have kept the Wings in the Eastern Conference playoff chase. But allowing three goals in the last eight minutes erased a 3-2 Wings’ lead and put the Wings officially in a tough category they didn’t want.
Those 10 consecutive years of missing the playoffs is now the longest such streak going in the NHL.
“Its’ been too many years in a row now,” Lucas Raymond said. “We’ve been right there and we haven’t been able to get it done. We have to figure it out and figure it out fast. Take that next step. We have to look at ourselves in the mirror, everyone in here, and have to be able to be better than this.
“It’s tough after a game like this. We put ourselves in a great spot this year to do something good and we didn’t.”
The Wings were 12 points clear of a playoff spot, among the Eastern Conference leaders, in late January, only to see the margin fritter away with another subpar March and April.
“We put ourselves in a good spot and did a lot of good things, but just didn’t set out what we set out to do – make the playoffs and continue to build this thing,” Larkin said.
Emmitt Finnie scored at the 7-minute mark of the third period, snapping a 2-2 tie with his 13th goal. But the Devils’ Cody Glass scored his 19th goal on a backhander in front of the net, tying the game 3-3 at 11:18.
Justin Faulk and David Perron, the Wings’ two acquisitions as the trade deadline, had the other Detroit goals.
Hughes and Bratt scored the first two goals for New Jersey.
Faulk opened the scoring with his 15th goal, fourth with the Wings, taking a feed from Dylan Larkin off the rush and beating goaltender Jake Allen from the dot at 9:41.
But the Devils answered 59 seconds later, with Hughes keeping the puck on a 2-on-1 rush and snapping a shot past goaltender John Gibson, Hughes’ 27th goal, at 10:40.
The Wings regained the lead on Perron’s 12th goal, second with the Wings, one-timing a pass from J.T. Compher past Allen at 11:59 of the second period. But the Devils answered again, with Bratt scoring his 21st at 15:16 on a long shot from the slot that Gibson didn’t see with bodies in front of him.
“I didn’t think we skated real well,” McLellan said. “We just didn’t skate real well, we didn’t have a lot of pop in our legs. We were second to a lot of things.”
The Wings now close out the season on the road in Tampa (Monday) and Florida (Wednesday). Then another long off season awaits.
“I don’t know what else to say,” Raymond said. “It’s a big disappointment, that goes without saying.”
tkulfan@detroitnews.com
@tkulfan
This article originally appeared on The Detroit News: Red Wings lose to Devils, eliminated from playoffs: ‘Big disappointment’
Reporting by Ted Kulfan, The Detroit News / The Detroit News
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
