To tank or not to tank? This is not an easy question to answer, and Detroit Red Wings fans have been debating this over the last few weeks of the regular season.
Personally, I side with “team” tank. But I admittingly didn’t know the best route to take doing it. The Detroit Red Wings have been on fire over the last few weeks of the season, winning games they have no business winning and suddenly playing like a playoff team when the playoffs are well out of reach and have been since the calendar changed from 2018 to 2019.
So what should they have done to guarantee a top-three draft choice? First of all, there are no guarantees with the NHL draft lottery format. You have better odds the worse you finish, but it only takes one good bounce your way to land the first overall pick.
Should the organization have sat Dylan Larkin, Andreas Athanasiou, Tyler Bertuzzi, and Anthony Mantha? No, I don’t think that would have gone over well throughout the locker room, and in hindsight, it would have prevented Larkin and Athanasiou from achieving thirty goal seasons’ along with Bertuzzi and Mantha from each producing twenty-plus goal seasons’ each.
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Players have reputations; they want to win every game most of the time they are playing for a job or auditioning for future employment. I had written a few weeks ago that Larkin should only play if he was 100% healthy and if he was not, they should not risk further injury since then they have been on a tear.
The Detroit Red Wings have merely played their way out of the Jack Hughes sweepstakes over the last two weeks, but they still have an outside chance with a little bit of lottery luck, but it isn’t looking good. It makes you sick to your stomach knowing you are not a playoff team and being four-points out of the last place a few weeks ago before going on this crazy run winning a string of games against better competition for the most part.
You can’t blame Jeff Blashill for wanting to win, he needs to win games and build a case for himself that led to a contract extension today. If the Wings would have wholly tanked and Blashill didn’t receive the memo to do so from Ken Holland things would have gotten dicey, and he could be unemployed. Although I personally would like to see the franchise go in a different direction I understand why Blashill didn’t sit his best players.
The Wings are currently fielding a mix and match lineup yet they still find a way to win. There are way too many injuries to write out these days and its basically the Wings top four forwards a couple of regular defenders blended together with a bunch of Grand Rapids Griffins, yet they seemingly can’t lose.
So although the team has likely played their way out of Jack Hughes’ services, it is apparent the elder statesmen that make up the bottom of the Wings lineup regularly need to be replaced by these young, hungry “cheap” players who have provided the team with these late season heroics. Let’s hope the Wings pick an impactful player where ever they choose and this late season bonding this group is enjoying rolls over into next season.