Red Wings Exorcise Devils

Tonight’s the night, one the Red Wings had hoped to postpone.

They will play tonight in Toronto, and then a season full of twists and turns will be over.

The Wings beat the playoff-bound New Jersey Devils 5-2 on Wednesday night, beating a Devils team that sat most of its top players in its final regular-season game, while Detroit started its first string.

Alex Lyon got the win in net in his final start and likely his final game in Detroit. Dylan Larkin hit the 30-goal mark for the fourth year in a row and Lucas Raymond became the first Red Wing to record 80 points in a season since the 2010-11 season.

“Obviously it’s fun, right?,” Raymond said of the milestone. “I’d lie if I said it otherwise, but just really happy the way we played tonight, where we are at and we just keep grinding and doing it for each other. ”

Red Wings Wrap Up  Season Tonight

Coach Todd McLellan cautioned against putting too much into the win, which was Detroit’s third in a row.

“These teams that we’ve been playing right now are not as loaded as they normally would be,” he said. “I’d like it to be in a stressful situation and it’s not quite that. But you take what you can get and find ways to win.”

Jonatan Berggren started the scoring in the first period after an apparent goal by Vladimir Tarasenko was disallowed due to goaltender interference after a long replay session. J.T Compher made it 2-0 in the second, and Larkin made it 3-0 early in the third.

New Jersey got close with a pair of goals later in the period, but Alex DeBrincat put the game out of reach with 2:51 to go, and Marco Kasper scored into an empty net with 10 seconds left.

Now, all that’s left are individual goals and a possible team milestone.

“I didn’t do or say much,” McLellan said of pregame preparations. ‘We prepared them like we always do. We asked them to play for each other. They owe it to each other to commit to these last six periods. Now we’re down to three and I don’t think that’s asking too much from each of them. You know, some guys have some personal goals that they’d like to reach.

“You know, we can hit the 40-win plateau by playing well tomorrow.”