Their playoff hopes clinging to life support, the Detroit Red Wings are invoking the mantra of the club’s celebratory post-game win song.
Don’t stop believing.
In reality, Detroit’s playoff chances are more like that scene in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, when the guy pulling the cart overflowing with bodies is hollering, “Bring out your dead.”
A body is dropped on top of the pile. “I’m not dead,” the alleged carcass proclaims.
“You’re not fooling anyone,” says the person seeking to discard him. “You will be soon.”
In reality, that is the fate that awaits this team.
Trailing the Ottawa Senators by three points for the final playoff spot with three games to go, mathematically, the Red Wings could still make it.
Realistically, it’s highly unlikely.
Red Wings captain Dylan Larkin, who earlier this season carried Miracle On Ice maker Mike Eruzione on his shoulders after helping the USA win Olympic gold, is going to need an even bigger miracle to lift this team into postseason play.
He knows it.
“I mean, saying it is one thing and going home and thinking about it all day and night and driving my wife crazy for all the ups and downs, but to go out and do it,” Larkin said, stopping in mid-thought.
Thursday, the Red Wings did do it, whipping the Philadelphia Flyers 6-3. If there were more performances like that, and fewer like Tuesday’s, when they coughed up the lead to the Columbus Blue Jackets with 17 seconds to play, Detroit would be a playoff team this spring.
Again, Larkin knows it.
“That’s what we did tonight as a team,” Larkin said. “And that’s what it’s going to take the next three.”
Red Wings Larkin Looking More Like Himself
Larkin is the one player in the Detroit dressing room who has experienced what it feels like to play a Stanley Cup playoff game while wearing the Winged Wheel.
As the only ever-present in what will soon likely be 10 straight years without playoff hockey, he’s become the lightning rod for criticism among a portion of the Red Wings fan base.
Some want him traded. Others would like to see him stripped of the captaincy.
“We don’t really care what you guys say about us outside this locker room,” Red Wings defenseman Moritz Seider said in defense of his captain. “We believe in him, so we always trust him.
“He’s an important player, and he definitely put the team on the back [in Thursday’s game]. And we need that three more times.”
Nursing what appears to be a knee injury, the jump has returned to Larkin’s legs over the past couple of games. He fired his third NHL hat-trick on Thursday.
“Clearly, he’s skating better in the last two games than he had been,” Red Wings coach Todd McLellan said. “We’re seeing the skating, the pace, and the ability to separate from the checkers and pull away even more power and pop in a shot.
“And a lot of that comes from loading your body up with your legs and releasing it. So. Saw a lot of really good things.”
Is it too little?
More than likely.
Is it too late?
Realistically, yes.
Still, Larkin won’t stop believing. Even if envisioning the Red Wings playing playoff hockey this spring certainly looks beyond belief.