The frustration of Detroit Red Wings team captain Dylan Larkin was evident following their costly 3-2 loss to the Ottawa Senators on Tuesday evening.
It was one of the biggest opportunities of the 2025-26 NHL Season for the Detroit Red Wings to prove that this year would be different than seasons past.
They faced a fatigued Ottawa Senators team that had not only played the night before but was also missing its top two defensemen, instead dressing a pair of rookies in their first NHL contests.
Instead, it was the Senators who jumped out to a 3-0 lead, eventually holding on for a 3-2 victory at Little Caesars Arena on Tuesday evening to leapfrog Detroit in the standings by a point.
Ottawa now occupies the second Wild Card postseason spot in the Eastern Conference, while Detroit's margin of error continues to shrink.
The latest missed opportunity by the Red Wings had their dressing room in a frustrated mood, according to team captain Dylan Larkin, who returned to the lineup after a seven-game absence.
"The room is mad, the guys are mad. That was a big game for our hockey team," Larkin said in the dressing room afterward. "And unfortunately, for how well we played against those guys all year and this one tonight, it kind of wipes away our record against those guys.
That was a big game, but we're going into Buffalo on Friday night. We have to pick ourselves back up, and that's mental toughness."
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For the second straight game, the Red Wings appeared to take a 1–0 lead, only to have the goal wiped out—just as it was in their loss to the Boston Bruins on Saturday night.
This time, instead of the clock expiring by just 0.2 seconds, replays showed that Detroit had entered the zone an inch offside.
Rather than taking a 1–0 lead, Detroit was soon penalized and ultimately fell behind 1–0 on a power-play goal by Brady Tkachuk.
But according to head coach Todd McLellan, there was no use in crying over spilled milk.
“There are rules in play for certain reasons, we ran out of time the other night against Boston, and we were clearly offside on the entry," he said. "If the linesman picked that up and made the right call, we wouldn’t even be talking about the goal that didn’t count. That’s why the rules are there.”
The Red Wings had earned victories in each of their three games against the Senators leading up to their final contest of the season.
However, the Senators continued to frustrate Detroit in March, in matchups with significant playoff implications.
As has been the case over the past two seasons, the Red Wings have now seen their playoff cushion completely vanish.
Defenseman Moritz Seider admitted that Detroit's level of urgency likely wasn’t where it needed to be in the first half of the contest, while adding that it’s up to the group to find a solution.
“Obviously, we've been in that situation before,” Seider said. “We know how much it can stink, we'd better come up with an answer for that. It's all on us right now.”
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