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Every Detroit Red Wings fan knows, deep in their heart, that the day will come when the team finally misses the playoffs.
It might not even be this year – they are still tied for the second Eastern Conference wild-card spot – but Saturday afternoon had the feeling of the end of an era.
It wasn’t just that, knowing they desperately needed a victory, the Red Wings lost at home to the Pittsburgh Penguins. Even with Evgeny Malkin injured, the Penguins have an explosive offense and a top-five defense.
What made the game memorable was that, on national television, trying to keep alive a postseason streak older than several key players, the team just rolled over and quit.
The Red Wings led 1-0 after the first period, but the next 40 minutes showcased some of the worst hockey a Detroit team had played in a long time. When the game ended, the Penguins were skating off the ice with a 7-2 victory, and Jeff Blashill appeared to have run out of ideas.
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Detroit Red Wings goalie Petr Mrazek (34) tips this shot with the end of his stick. (Photo by Steven King/Icon Sportswire)
Blashill’s favorite motivational technique – pulling the goaltender whether the goals were his fault or not – failed this time. He pulled Petr Mrazek after the Penguins made it 4-1 late in the second period, but Jimmy Howard gave up three more goals on 14 shots.
“I think Petr’s got to be better than that – those weren’t all easy goals to score,” Blashill said in his postgame interview on FOX Sports Detroit. “I thought we got goofy in the third. I know we were trying to come back and all that stuff, but you have got to play good hockey. You can’t develop bad habits.”
The trouble, though, isn’t Mrazek. He carried a poor team on his back for two months, and now that he’s going through a rough stretch, his teammates haven’t been able to pick him up.
From Dec. 10 to Feb. 10, Mrazek posted a 0.942 save percentage and a 13-6-1 record on a team with a below-average offense and some of the league’s worst special teams. Since then, he has struggled. He has missed time with a groin injury and the flu, and when he has played, he hasn’t been nearly as sharp. Over the last six weeks, he’s only posted an 0.888 save percentage in 15 games.
Howard hasn’t been the same since a groin injury cost him an All-Star berth last season. He’s 10-11-5 this year with a 0.905 save percentage, below the league average of 0.911.
However, a starter with a 0.921 save percentage and a backup at 0.905 would be more than good enough to get a good offensive team into a 25th straight postseason. The Red Wings haven’t been able to hold up that end of the bargain. They rank 24th in scoring, and with seven games to play, still only have two 20-goal scorers – rookie Dylan Larkin has 21 and Tomas Tatar has 20.
That’s down for Tatar, who led the team with 29 last season, but he’s not the only one. Gustav Nyquist has gone from 27 to 16 and Pavel Datsyuk has dropped from 26 to 16. Justin Abdelkader and Henrik Zetterberg have had smaller declines, while no one other than Larkin has stepped up as an option.
Will all that be enough to end a postseason streak that started during Sergei Fedorov and Jaromir Jagr’s rookie season? It might. The Flyers do have a game in hand, but took a bad loss Saturday night to the Coyotes, while the slumping Bruins are only three points ahead of Detroit and have one fewer game to play.
Another hot stretch from Mrazek could get them in, or a few games of offensive prowess, or the Bruins might back themselves right out of third place in the Atlantic.
Or this might finally be the end.
Whatever happens, though, it won’t be the fault of the goaltending.
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