Red Wings Find a Win . . . Let’s See if They Can Find Another

At this stage of the season, in the midst of the playoff chase, it’s important for the Detroit Red Wings to develop amnesia.

Forget about what just happened. The only thing that matters is winning the next one.

Ultimately, it’s about getting on a roll.

Thing is, the Red Wings seem to have forgotten this formula. Unlike Frank The Tank in Old School, they’re not going streaking.

It’s great for them that they beat the Carolina Hurricanes 5-3 on Friday. Detroit had lost six in a row to the Canes.

“It’s a huge win against a top team,” Red Wings forward Patrick Kane said.

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Can they do it again? Lately, the answer to that question has been no, they can’t.

“You look at our schedule the rest of the way, it doesn’t really get any easier,” Kane said.

It’s been well documented that the Red Wings are dealing with the NHL’s toughest schedule down the stretch of the regular season. And they haven’t been dealing with it very well.

Even with Friday’s win, they are 5-11-1 over the past 17 games. Detroit has won consecutive games just once during that span. When you’re trying to make up ground in the standings, that’s not the recipe for success.

“It has to happen over and over and over again,” Red Wings coach Todd McLellan said of the need for consistent performance from his team.

Consistency Eluding Red Wings

Despite the fact that the club has gained five out of six points from the past three games, Detroit is still four points behind Montreal for the second Wild Card in the Eastern Conference.

Even during an impressive outcome on Friday, McLellan was still witness to some worrying signs.

“You can still see moments in the game where we are apprehensive or retreating when we could be aggressive,” he said.

“We’ve got to get that through the players to keep pushing rather than retreat.”

Still Chance To Write Happy Ending

Certainly, the odds aren’t on Detroit’s side in pursuit of playoff hockey. Yet there remains a realistic path to getting it done. It starts by beating Florida at home on Sunday. Then there’s an absolute must-win game at Montreal on Tuesday.

If the Wings don’t achieve the former, the significance of the latter accomplishment diminishes greatly.

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“I challenged our group after the Four Nations break,” McLellan said. “Who are we? Are we the early team? Are we the team that kind of got it going? And we’ve proven to be more of the early team than the team that got it going over the last little bit.

“But we talked about the story’s not done yet. We can still write another chapter or two. So let’s get playing the way we can. And again, I keep saying I look up at the scoreboard at the end of the night. Don’t worry about standings or scores or anything like that.

“Let’s keep pushing. We’ll see what happens after Florida.”