Their playoff hopes clinging to life support, the Detroit Red Wings are invoking the mantra of the club\u2019s celebratory post-game win song.<\/p>\n
Don\u2019t stop believing.<\/p>\n
In reality, Detroit\u2019s<\/a> 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, \u201cBring out your dead.\u201d<\/p>\n A body is dropped on top of the pile. \u201cI\u2019m not dead,\u201d the alleged carcass proclaims.<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019re not fooling anyone,\u201d says the person seeking to discard him. \u201cYou will be soon.\u201d<\/p>\n In reality, that is the fate that awaits this team. <\/p>\n Trailing the Ottawa Senators<\/a> by three points for the final playoff spot with three games to go, mathematically, the Red Wings could still make it.<\/p>\n Realistically, it\u2019s highly unlikely.<\/p>\n Red Wings captain Dylan Larkin<\/a>, who earlier this season carried Miracle On Ice maker Mike Eruzione<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n He knows it.<\/p>\n \u201cI 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,\u201d Larkin said, stopping in mid-thought. <\/p>\n Thursday, the Red Wings did do it, whipping the Philadelphia Flyers 6-3. If there were more performances like that, and fewer like Tuesday\u2019s, when they coughed up the lead to the Columbus Blue Jackets with 17 seconds to play, Detroit would be a playoff team this spring.<\/p>\n Again, Larkin knows it.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s what we did tonight as a team,\u201d Larkin said. \u201cAnd that\u2019s what it\u2019s going to take the next three.\u201d<\/p>\n Red Wings Larkin Looking More Like Himself<\/p>\n 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. <\/p>\n As the only ever-present in what will soon likely be 10 straight years without playoff hockey, he\u2019s become the lightning rod for criticism among a portion of the Red Wings fan base.<\/p>\n Some want him traded. Others would like to see him stripped of the captaincy.<\/p>\n