Losers of 5 in a row, the Detroit Red Wings are in danger of slipping out of the playoff race

Dylan Larkin kept harping on it after another Detroit loss. He has been saying the same thing to the rest of the Red Wings during their ongoing skid.

"Just find a way to win a hockey game," the captain said. “We just got to get a win, get off the schneid, find a way to win and then continue to find ways to win, not find ways to lose.”

Lately, they've been finding all sorts of ways to lose. They have dropped five in a row and seven of nine to go from occupying the first wild-card spot in the Eastern Conference to being on the outside looking in with less than a quarter of the NHL season remaining. Their playoff chances are in danger of slipping away, extending the longest drought in franchise history.

Larkin even acknowledged the team's collective confidence is shaken.

“If we’re talking like that, we have to look at each other or look at ourselves and figure out what we can do better individually and collectively,” coach Todd McLellan said. "It’s hard at this time of the year. Our guys are learning that. I’m not sure everybody quite understands that. But clearly we have a lot to work on and a lot to learn.”

That Detroit is even in the hunt is thanks in large part to general manager Steve Yzerman firing Derek Lalonde after losing 21 of the first 34 games this season and hiring McLellan as his replacement. The Red Wings won 15 of their first 20 games after the coaching change to vault up the standings.

“We’ve lost a little bit of steam, but I’m very pleased,” Yzerman said. “I was obviously pleased to get us into the playoff race, and now here we’ve got to win hockey games, obviously, and win a lot of them.”

The playoff contenders around them certainly are. Ottawa has won three of four and Columbus four of six, and the New York Rangers are back in it after an early season funk extended into January, and all three have leapfrogged the Red Wings.

“It’s not going to get any easier down the stretch with our schedule," Larkin said.

He's right: The Red Wings have the hardest remaining schedule of the league's 32 teams with 19 games left to play, starting Monday at the Senators.

“We have no choice," veteran winger Patrick Kane said. "Nineteen games left in the year, and, yeah, we have no choice, so we have to get ready for the next one.”

Kane won the Stanley Cup three times with Chicago, and Yzerman brought him in to be part of the charge to get Detroit into the playoffs for the first time since 2016. What the longtime captain-turned-executive did not do was make a big splash at the trade deadline like many of the teams around him did.

The only move was relatively minor, acquiring journeyman forward Craig Smith and goaltender Petr Mrazek from the Blackhawks. Yzerman did not want to part with a first-round pick or a top prospect, pointing out his team has not yet opened its championship-contending window.

“We did what we thought we could to give us a better chance here at the playoffs," Yzerman said. “Is it earth-shattering? No, it’s not. But the only way we could do something earth-shattering is to give up first-round picks and our best young players and prospects, and I think everybody would agree that just to try and hope for us to get in, this isn’t the time to do that.”

Not sure fans in a city known as “Hockeytown” who haven't witnessed a playoff series victory in 11 years or the players who haven't been in meaningful games beyond mid-April necessarily agree. Nothing against Smith and Mrazek, but they could hardly be considered difference-makers and adding them isn't exactly a show of confidence in the locker room.

“Well, I mean, the message is the message," Larkin said. "We didn’t do a whole lot, but I think it’s also hard. ... You look at what’s going on around the league and it’s pretty wild with all the big teams loading up. It is what it is right now. We’ve got a group in here that we believe can win, and we just got to start doing it.”

During a lengthy video call with reporters Friday, Yzerman, who is in his sixth season on the job, defended his conservative approach at the deadline on the basis of thinking long term.

“When you’re ready to start using your top prospects and go all in is when you believe you’re ready to win a Stanley Cup, and we’re not there,” he said. “We’re prepared to use our (first-round) pick and prospects, but it’s got to be for players one, that we really like that we believe in and that they’re going to be a part of this thing next year and future years and beyond. Otherwise, this whole thing has been a waste and a waste of time, I think, so it would just set us back and delay it even further and nobody wants that."

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