Detroit Red Wings

Red Wings Finish Season Meekly With Another Loss

Detroit finishes NHL season on four-game losing skid

Published

1 year ago

April 13, 2023

Bob Duff

Red Wings captain Dylan Larkin came up one point shy of an 80-point season.

The Detroit Red Wings couldn’t get their .500 season in Thursday’s NHL regular-season finale against the Tampa Bay Lightning. In fact, they couldn’t even muster up a goal.

A 5-0 road loss to the Lightning marked the fourth successive game to finish out the season in which the Red Wings would score one goal or less. They were 0-4 in those games and overall, were outscored 20-3 in those four setbacks. Detroit wound up 35-37-10 on the NHL season.

Brian Elliott made 32 saves in the Lightning net to become the fifth netminder to shutout the Red Wings this season. It’s the second straight game in which Tampa Bay blanked Detroit. Andrei Vasilevskiy was between the pipes when the Lightning were 3-0 victors at Little Caesars Arena on Feb. 25. It’s the first time that the Wings have been shutout twice by the Lightning in the same season.

The loss also ended Detroit’s two-game winning streak at Amalie Arena. The Wings are 3-2 in their last five visits to Tampa Bay, but 3-19 over the past 22 games that they’ve played there.

Red Wings Larkin One Point Short

Back following a one-game injury absence, Red Wings captain Dylan Larkin came up one point shy of being the first Red Wings player to register an 80-point season in over a decade. Henrik Zetterberg was the last to do so during the 2010-11 season.

Larkin finished first on the team with 32 goals, 47 assists, 79 points, 16 power play goals, 31 power play points (1st), five game-winning goals (1st) and 241 shots. He led the Wings with 17 multi-point games and eight three-point outings.

Larkin also established a new career high in points, shattering his previous best of 73 points set during the 2018-19 season (32-41-73 in 76 GP). He joined Pavel Datsyuk (5x), Zetterberg (5x) and Nicklas Lidström (2x) as the fourth Detroit skater to post multiple 70-point campaigns over the last 20 years. He became the first Red Wings player to record consecutive 30-goal seasons since Zetterberg (4 from 2005-06 to 2008-09) and Datsyuk (2 from 2007-08 to 2008-09).