Pummeled by Flyers, Red Wings might have hit rock bottom (they hope)

Ray Slover

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Pummeled by Flyers, Red Wings might have hit rock bottom (they hope) image

There was further evidence Saturday why the Detroit Red Wings could miss the Stanley Cup playoffs. It was as plain as a 7-2 loss to the Philadelphia Flyers.

Losers of four of their past five games, the Wings cling to third place in the Atlantic Division. The Boston Bruins took advantage of illness to Sidney Crosby and an injury to Evgeni Malkin to win 2-0 at Pittsburgh and draw closer in the standings.

In Philadelphia, the Wings had no answers to the Flyers or for their own failures. In their 10th consecutive loss at Wells Fargo Center, they had success only on the power play.

The Wings, Helene St. James wrote for the Detroit Free Press, "aren't scoring, aren't defending, aren't working."

MLive.com's Ansar Khan reported the Wings "were lethargic at the start and played catch-up almost the entire game." Equally concerning, Khan wrote, "they had defensive breakdowns and coverage issues."

Ted Kulfan of The Detroit News wrote: "The Wings' penalty kill is a mess, their confidence is slipping."

Can it get any worse? "You have to hit rock bottom before you can turn it around," Henrik Zetterberg said. "Hopefully we did that today."

Coach Mike Babcock added to the laundry list.

"If this wasn't an exclamation point, I don't know what it is," coach Mike Babcock said. "We gave them four goals that were freebies, tap-ins. We weren't good enough. All we have to do is look at ourselves. We haven't been good enough."

If the Wings dodged a bullet, it was only because defenseman Niklas Kronwall wasn't injured when his head slammed into the glass in the second period. Still …

"We have to get back doing what we did the beginning of the year; we were aggressive and trusting each other," Kronwall said.

If there's an opportunity to atone for their shoddy Saturday, it comes Sunday when the Wings play the Penguins.

"If we want to play in four weeks we have to make some changes," Zetterberg said. "We know we can play better, we just got to do it."

Ray Slover