DETROIT—The Detroit Red Wings dropped their fourth straight game Thursday night at Little Caesars Arena, falling 4–2 to the visiting Utah Hockey Club. 

That skid has pushed the Red Wings to the wrong side of the playoff cut line, and, perhaps more disturbingly, evoked memories of last year's March swoon that narrowly cost Detroit a chance at a playoff bid.

"We just can't find a win," said a somber Dylan Larkin after the game.  "We've lost not playing well, we've lost playing well...You look at the big picture and kind of zoom out a little bit, and it's four games.  We've got a chance tomorrow night to right the ship and get that win and hopefully build confidence from there."

Despite conceding the game's first goal just 2:08 after the opening faceoff, the Red Wings had a 2–1 lead by the midpoint of the opening period.  The first was a clear departure from Detroit's languid performance against Carolina Tuesday night, when coach Todd McLellan described his team as skating as though through mud.  Detroit flew out of the gate and out-shot Utah in each of the three periods, but as the game crept on, the visitors seized control.  "I...think there were some chances when we were up 2–1 to make it 3–1, and those are big moments in the game," assessed forward Patrick Kane.

Utah tied the game with a power play goal with 6:59 left in the second, then scored twice five minutes apart over the first eight minutes of the third to take a 4–2 lead.  While the Red Wings had been generating opportunities all night long, that two-goal deficit felt insurmountable.

With 4:23 to play, Kane took a penalty for holding the stick of former Red Wings defenseman Olli Maatta (traded in late October, returning to LCA as a visitor for the first time), and Detroit's hopes of a comeback all but vanished.

As for the prevailing mood of onsetting doom following the scars of last spring and the spring before, McLellan made the case that each team should be evaluated independently, but even he seemed to acquiesce to that possibility.  When asked whether a feeling of 'here we go again' was creeping in for his team,  McLellan replied, "I'd like to answer no, but I don't know that for sure.  I don't know what it's felt like in the past...I'd like to think we've learned from the past, and we're mentally stronger...We're our own group...and we're gonna write our own story."  He did concede that the "belief system" built up in early days of his tenure is now "really getting tested."

Here's more on where this night when wrong for Detroit:

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Mazur Injury Leaves Early Deflation

The story of the game was supposed to be the debut of 22-year-old rookie Carter Mazur, who had practically the whole town of Jackson, MI at LCA to support him.  Mazur read out the starting lineup in the Red Wings dressing room, he tossed his mother a puck during pre-game warm-up, and his father gave away a tray of celebratory shots at a bar a few blocks down Woodward Ave from LCA before the game began.

Then the game began, and Mazur pulled up abruptly on just his second shift of the night, heading straight down the tunnel for further evaluation from Detroit's medical staff after an awkward collision with Jack McBain in the neutral zone.  He did not return, finishing his first career game with just a minute and 10 seconds of ice time.

McLellan did not have a definitive update on Mazur's timetable to return or the specifics of his injury but said, "Obviously didn't return after two shifts.  You basically really have to be banged up if you're not gonna return to the ice your first night that early in the game, so he won't travel with us [for Friday's game in Washington], and he'll be further evaluated later tonight and tomorrow."

As such, it wound up a massively disappointing night for Mazur, whose only real obstacle since turning pro in the spring of 2023 has been health.  Last year, an injury at the Traverse City Prospect Tournament cost him all of training camp and derailed the start to his first full season of professional hockey.  This season, Mazur likely would've made his NHL debut sooner had he not been out injured from mid-October to mid-January with an upper body ailment.

Two shifts and 70 seconds of ice wasn't supposed to be Mazur's story tonight, and it certainly wasn't the one he deserved.  However, the University of Denver product has proven his resilience before, so here's to a swift recovery and rapid return for Mazur.

Lack of Decisiveness at Both Nets Costs Red Wings

In the first game of the present four-game skid, Detroit got its best performance from goaltender Cam Talbot.  In the subsequent three games (the first another Talbot start, the following two both started by Alex Lyon), the Red Wings have conceded at least one goal in each game that should've been stopped.

On Thursday, it was Utah's opener, which Dylan Guenther buried from a difficult angle just above the goal line, with Lyon slow to read and react to the play.  "The first one, they score from the corner.  That's not a good goal, in my opinion," McLellan assessed succinctly.

And yet, Lyon alone was not to blame for the loss, with the Red Wings unable to capitalize on their chances and provide him with any margin for error.  Again, it's not as though Detroit lacked offensive opportunities, but it failed to capitalize on them, including an 0-for-3 night on the power play.

"I thought [Utah goalie Karel Vejmelka, who made 32 saves] was good, but...we had chances, and it's just not bearing down and understanding how big those goals are.  Especially a time right now when they're hard to find and games are tight," Larkin said.  "Todd always says it's a race to three, and it would've been nice...just to bear down and put it away and get up two."

McLellan pointed out that both third period goals for Utah came on broken plays, then added, "That's why I'm talking about building in a little bit of offensive support, so that if those things do happen, we're okay."

Lyon wasn't at the top of his game again Thursday, but the Red Wings in front of him also failed to take advantage of the chances they created at the other end of the rink.  For obvious reasons, that's not a winning recipe. 

Deadline Forces Sober Assessment for Struggling Red Wings

Perhaps the strangest fact of the evening's game was its relationship to Friday afternoon's trade deadline.  On the one hand, the Red Wings were playing what felt a must-win game to bolster their playoff positioning and alleviate the mounting doom and bad memories from last March.  On the other, the swirl of news and rumors related to the deadline made the game itself feel almost an afterthought to the deadline itself.

Like last year, there can be no denying that Detroit limps toward the deadline, but McLellan contended that the losing streak "doesn't necessarily change the approach."  "The organization will do whatever it can to make the team better for Saturday...for Sunday and for training camp next year and moving forward," he said.  "It's not just a short-term look; it's not just a long-term look; it's looking at the group as a whole and can we find players that fit our team better?  Can we find players that can make us better now?  Can we find players that'll help us with chemistry?"

On Thursday, the Red Wings lost lost a player for free as a result of their deadline machinations, when the Columbus Blue Jackets (a direct wild card rival that just took four points off Detroit last weekend) claimed Christian Fischer off waivers.  That news broke in the early afternoon, and Larkin acknowledged that losing Fischer—a supremely popular player amongst his teammates and a vocal leader on a team that tends toward the quiet side—was "hard for our room."

"I think so highly of him as a guy and as a locker room guy—someone that just did anything for the team," Larkin added of Fischer.  "It's hard when he goes to a team, especially that we're battling with for the playoffs, and...It's part of the business, but it's not fun when he goes away for free."

Despite momentum swirling away from the team, Larkin made the case that the Red Wings shouldn't count themselves out of the fight just yet.  "You zoom out from Christmas-time, and you look at—we talked about it as a group yesterday—how far we've come and how we didn't really see ourselves in this position but we put the work in and we got ourselves here," the captain said.  "We'll see what happens [before the deadline], but I feel we've made a case to continue to push this thing and keep playing for the playoffs and get in."

We will see by 3 PM Friday whether GM Steve Yzerman agrees with Larkin's assessment or at least how his moves re-shape Detroit's immediate and longer term future.

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