With Dylan Larkin injured, the Red Wings remain close to the playoffs, but glaring vulnerabilities have arisen in the depth the team has touted since training camp

"It's not just Larks," said Ben Chiarot after the latest and most humbling yet of the Red Wings' seven consecutive regulation losses. "Defensively, you see the chances we give up, the breakdowns that we have.  When we've been playing well this year, those chances aren't happening...That's what I see.  I see too many chances given up.  Puts too much stress on what we're trying to do defensively.  It's costing us."

Chiarot and David Perron had earned the unenviable task of debriefing a 4-1 defeat to the Coyotes with the press.  They wore blank stares and delivered the only possible message there could be given the context, giving voice to the problems anyone who saw the evening's game or the six preceding it already knew.  Both emphasized that—however toothless Detroit's attack may appear—getting back to winning hockey has to start with stouter defense.  "It's unacceptable," said Perron. "It's as tough as it gets right now in the room."

What feels hardest about discussing Detroit's present seven-game losing streak is how total the collapse has been.  There have been the defensive breakdowns Chiarot alluded to.  There has been an utter lack of attacking thrust and creativity.  Both special teams have struggled.  The goaltending has been poor.  And worst of all, each problem only seems to intensify the others.

Alex Lyon has faced a surplus of premium chances because of poor D zone coverage and struggled to rise to that challenge.  Lyon's form has increased the pressure on the Red Wings' scorers, who have not been able to outscore problems—to borrow the phrase the team itself has used repeatedly—the way they could earlier in the season.

Of course no team is well-suited to spend any sort of prolonged period without its top center, and while Dylan Larkin may not be Leon Draisaitl or Connor McDavid, he is, without question, the Red Wings' best, most versatile, and most important forward.

We are also talking about a small sample of a long season—five games thus far in this latest Larkin's run of unavailability.  With and without Larkin, this has been a season of massive swings of momentum.  The playoff fight isn't over either by any means, and there is a risk of overreacting to a painful stretch of hockey at the worst possible moment.

However, the promise of this group—since literally the first day of training camp back in September in Traverse City—has been its depth.  If one piece's absence (even the undeniably most important piece) has such a cascading impact, it's hard to find much faith in the impact of that depth.

To focus on the forward group in particular, Detroit has made significant investment down the middle in each of the last two summers to fill in behind Larkin (five years, $28.125 million for Andrew Copp two summers ago and five years, $25 million for J.T. Compher last summer).  It's not that either player has been dreadful in Larkin's absence, but the Red Wings' capacity to both score and control games has been severely diminished.  This team was supposed to be built on defensive solidity, and, without Larkin, that solidity is no where to be found.

Meanwhile, Detroit's scorers have also run dry during this five-game spell without Larkin.  Patrick Kane has just two assists, and he is -5.  Alex DeBrincat has one assists and an identical -5 rating.  Lucas Raymond (with little doubt the best Red Wing since Larkin went down) has two goals and an assist but a -11 rating.  Daniel Sprong (who has only played four of the Larkin-less games after being a healthy scratch Thursday) has no points and a -6 rating.

Again, Detroit's offensive dry spell doesn't have to be all about Larkin, and we've seen these scorers enjoy hot streaks and endure cold ones with and without him in the lineup.  However, it's impossible to avoid questioning the quality of the Red Wings depth given just how far the team's fortunes have fallen during Larkin's latest absence.

So, what is the takeaway from all this?  Well, however this season concludes (and again, it's worth reminding ourselves that things could still turn around, and the postseason remains a realistic possibility), the roster demands serious scrutiny over the summer.

Of course, help is coming via the prospect pool, but whatever progress this season has brought carries no assurances for next year.  66 games into their season, it's clear the Red Wings are close to breaking out of their rebuild and returning to contention, but these five games without Larkin have made it undeniable that they are vulnerable too.  And between the entrenched powers in the Eastern Conference and fellow rebuilding aspirants like the Sabres, those vulnerabilities will have to be addressed to push from 'playoff team' on to 'Cup contender.'

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