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The Daily: Break Comes At Bad Time for Red Wings; NHL Trade Talk

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The Ottawa Senators, the Detroit Red Wings’ nemesis, beat them in overtime 3-2 last night. But that loss didn’t diminish the Red Wings’ enthusiasm about how well the team played in January. By earning a point against Ottawa, they finished January with 2o points (9-2-2).



Those points allowed Detroit to move within one point of the Tampa Bay Lightning for third place in the Atlantic Division. According to Moneypuck, the Red Wings now have a 50.3% chance of making the playoffs.

That’s encouraging for a team that has missed the postseason for seven consecutive seasons.

“This is going to be fun,” Red Wings coach Derek Lalonde said. “Since I’ve been here, we’ve put all of our energy and all of work in just getting us in the fight. Beginning of the year I think we were eight percent chance to be in this battle. Even at Christmas, we were in that single digit percentage to be in the battle, and now we’re here. Let’s see how we handle it. I’m really excited about watching us take a run at it the second half of the year.”

Players always look forward to their annual break. Because the NHL All-Star game is this weekend, the Red Wings won’t play again for 10 days. The Red Wings will benefit with the return of injured players Patrick Kane and Ben Chiarot. But given how impressively they have played and how much momentum, they’ve gained, the Red Wings also understand that the timing of this break couldn’t be worse.

The one negative about the break is sometimes when you’re away from it that long you forget, you maybe don’t have the muscle memory of how hard we were actually competing. So, we’ll have to get that back in a couple of practices.”

Red Wings In Case You Missed It

  • Captain Dylan Larkin has led Detroit’s offensive charge in January. He netted 10 goals this month.
  • Jonatan Berggren is on a six-game points streak. He has five goals and five assists in the surge. He will play in the AHL All-Star game this weekend.  Simon Edvinsson was also selected to play.
  • Paywall: Red Wings remaining schedule favors team ending their seven-year NHL playoff drought.

Red Wings Next Game

Coach Derek Lalonde’s players have an eight-day extended All-Star break and 10 days off before they play their next game against the Vancouver Canucks on Feb. 10 (1 p.m. at Little Caesars Arena)

Hockey Now Network

Boston: Does it make sense for the Boston Bruins to trade for Noah Hanifin. The Calgary Flames already moved Elias Lindholm to Vancouver. The Flames are starting to move. Jimmy Murphy explores the possibility in a paywall story.

Chicago: Nate Brown weighs in on whether the rebuilding Chicago Blackhawks should pursue a trade for Kaapo Kakko

Florida: Paul Maurice should be a Jack Adams Coach of the Year nominee. That’s George Richards’ take. Florida Panthers.

Montreal: Marc Dumont offers his Montreal Canadiens‘ prospect power rankings. The team has some promising youngsters in the pipeline.

Philadelphia: Jonathan Bailey has a take about how Lindholm’s trade impacts the Philadelphia Flyers. 

Pittsburgh: Dan Kingerski writes that the Pittsburgh Penguins are in the market for scoring wingers.  Does Vladimir Tarasenko or Victor Olofsson make sense?