Poll: Who/What do you blame for missing the playoffs?

[Rzombo4 prez]

Huh? The question was whom to blame and I think it was a lot of the vets. And I don't even necessarily think they should have played the kids, just sign better vets.

Our entire roster sans Ed, Seider and maybe Valeno, are all vets at this point. Thus, blaming it on "the vets" isn't being very descriptive.

I agree though that talent is the biggest explanation of the result and that the free agent market has not provided enough talent (and won't provide enough talent in the future either).

 

[RedWingzz]

the main reason we missed the playoffs is a lack of mental toughness; the inability to stop the bleeding when things got bad.

I dont know why they are so fragile, but thats the reason they missed. When they lost a couple games (December and February) rather than snapping the losing skid at 2 or 3 games, they just couldnt stop the bleeding and kept losing

 

[Steve Yzerlland]

Guys is this the closest a team has ever came to making the playoffs? I can't remember a more nail biting, gut wrenching ending. I'm actually reeling from this...

 

[Run the Jewels]

I went with goaltending. It's not fair or reasonable to blame one single leg of the chair, but Husso was bad then out, Reimer was bad then shelved, and so you had to rely on Lyon and it wore him out. All the other stuff was a factor to be sure, but with average goaltending throughout I think they're in.

IMO.

Still, a great run and I was very entertained by it. I expect even this exact same roster with a new goalie will do well next year.

Yeah, I went with goaltending. We had 3 goaltenders and none of them were capable of getting the job done, even when we did a nice job with shot suppression. I was tempted to go with injuries as losing Husso and Walman for long stretches were big losses and obviously losing Larkin for a couple weeks didn't help, but every team has to deal with injuries to some extent.

 

[ShanahanMan]

Guys is this the closest a team has ever came to making the playoffs? I can't remember a more nail biting, gut wrenching ending. I'm actually reeling from this...

Same. Haven’t been able to concentrate on work at all.

 

[Shaman464]

I'm going to take this opportunity to air this grievance of mine, but if the NHL got rid of the loser point system, Detroit and Washington would be in while the Islanders would be out.

Detroit had 41 regulation wins.
Washington had 40 regulation wins.
Islanders had 38 regulations wins.

But, because the Islanders lost 16 games in OT, they're in and Detroit is out.

As has been said, Detroit was in the driver's seat and they crashed the car, but I hate the loser point system with a passion. I've hated it since the moment the NHL introduced the Shootout. Once they determined a game will have a winner and a loser, the loser point system should have gone out the window. My bitch here, is more about the system in general than Detroit's particular situation this season.

Where did you get those numbers? Detroit had 27 regulation wins and 38 regulation and OT wins.

 

[norrisnick]

For me its not too many veterans on the blue line. I think one of the most underrated things in being good is having vets on the blueline. Look at many of the top teams, look at vegas winning the cup last year...having guys back there with experience is vastly underrated.

12 losses in 15 games (most of the month of March)....and 9 losses in 11 games in December is what did them in. If you are a really good team, you MIGHT be able to go through one stretch like that, but 2 of them in the same season is too much to overcome. Now was there one person or one thing responsible for just having 2 bad runs? I'm not sure..

The problem is that too many people seem to equate veteran with good. That's not how that works.

 

[AlwaysSunnyInDetroit]

the only correct is yzerman's roster construction. i mean, brady cleveland is right there...

 

[odin1981]

I'm saying the Logo lmao. But in all reality, the player's for not getting 1 more point in the what 14-15 games Larkin was out with injuries.

 

[DanielMarois]

There's some shielding of Yzerman being done, which is understandable. While he did have a tough job when he started, he also did have a #1 C in his prime, three top six picks and a lot of cap space the last few years. That's not nothing. I think the signing of Kane was absolutely a signal that they want and think they can make playoffs this year.

 

[Voodoo Glow Skulls]

Other.

Shit happens.

 

[GMR]

Even McCarty said we need more high end scoring. One of these prospects needs to be a hidden superstar. Like a Dats or a Z.

McCarty left his groceries in the marketplace a while back.

 

[Lazlo Hollyfeld]

There's some shielding of Yzerman being done, which is understandable. While he did have a tough job when he started, he also did have a #1 C in his prime, three top six picks and a lot of cap space the last few years. That's not nothing. I think the signing of Kane was absolutely a signal that they want and think they can make playoffs this year.

"Three top 6 picks" makes it sound better than it was considering none of those picks was 1, 2, or 3.

He had one 4th and two 6th overall picks and he came away with Seider, Raymond and Edvinsson. And the cap space was due to his own cap management.

 

[14ari13]

I don’t see an overachieving team, I see a team that landed in roughly the spot I predicted when the season started.

The disappointment for me is they put themselves in a great position then pissed it away down the stretch.

Lyon put them in a great position while he was on the hot streak, Lalonde pissed it away.
I remember the game vs the Blues, I believe we beat them 6-1, it looked like we would score 10 goals. I was thinking to myself I hope the coach doesn't believe they are this good. 6-1 blues, 8-3 capitals, 5-0 flames, 3-0 flyers. We were not that good.

1. Not beating Washington when they had the chance
2. Not coming out for blood in any game down the stretch except for the Buffalo game

We needed two Hail Mary's to beat the worse team in our conference in the biggest games of the year.

I believe it was one hit, and none deflection.

Even McCarty said we need more high end scoring. One of these prospects needs to be a hidden superstar. Like a Dats or a Z.

I can't believe McCarty can say so stupid things.
All Yzerman has to do is trade Czarnik and a second round dp for McKinnon and send Copp too to make room for McKinnon's money.
Someone has to tell McCarty this is not 2002 when Hasek traded himself to the wings for Kozlov.
Yzerman did what was realistic and possible by bringing DeBrincat and Kane.

Yeah, I went with goaltending. We had 3 goaltenders and none of them were capable of getting the job done, even when we did a nice job with shot suppression. I was tempted to go with injuries as losing Husso and Walman for long stretches were big losses and obviously losing Larkin for a couple weeks didn't help, but every team has to deal with injuries to some extent.

No goalie can fix that bad TEAM'S defence. It is not our defenders who are bad, it is the team's defence which was terrible.


A team which is top 3/5 at offense should definitely make the playoffs over the team which has scored the least in the whole conference and has scored more than only 5 teams in the entire league. That crap hockey should not be rewarded.

 

[Steve Yzerlland]

The NHL likely wanted to make 5v5 victories more valuable than 3v3 ones.

The logic makes sense, even if one may not agree with it.

Yes but essentially three teams were eliminated because a team was forced to pull their goalie in a tied game. That's not a good look for the league imo.

 

[AussieWings]

Yes but essentially three teams were eliminated because a team was forced to pull their goalie in a tied game. That's not a good look for the league imo.

You might be right that optics are bad but, at the end of of the day, you win enough games, you don't need to worry about what other teams are doing to try and secure their own spots.

 

[DanielMarois]

"Three top 6 picks" makes it sound better than it was considering none of those picks was 1, 2, or 3.

He had one 4th and two 6th overall picks and he came away with Seider, Raymond and Edvinsson. And the cap space was due to his own cap management.

It also worked out somewhat because in all likelihood they would have drafted Lafreniere over Raymond. And the cap space was then blown on guys like Copp/Compher/Holl etc

 

[Gniwder]

As for the injuries excuses , the Caps were without two of their top 4 D in Sandin/Jensen for the last few remaining games and the Isles were without their top D in Dobson for the last few games.

Their top center wound up on PAP, their 2C never recovered from hip surgery, and they made the playoffs with Strome who makes less than Copp/Compher as 1C.

And funny enough, if Stevie had signed Strome instead of Copp, the Wings could've had the Cat/Strome/Kane line this season.

 

[TheOtherOne]

I mean it's kind of insane that we finished up the season twice against a bad team that was already eliminated and we still had to score 4 in each of them just to tie in regulation.

I miss low scoring games.

 

[RRhoads]

I think they spent way too much time in their own zone. It's not so much that they didn't defend that well without the puck, it is more what they did with the puck in their own zone. Passing pucks to forwards that had no space, and icing the pucks. They had no real variety in how to break out, and with little variety, the team is easy to read. Most of the time they would play the puck around the board to a winger who's got a player right on him, who'd either lose the board battle or chip the puck out to center ice to an opponent. Now, this is not only on the defensemen making the passes, it is mostly on the forwards not getting open for a pass.

We also need less dump and chase. It's fine for the fourth line, and to a degree the third line, as they play somewhat limited minutes, but we can't have 3 lines dumping and chasing all game, as it is too taxing, and will leave you tired.

 

[Lampedampe]

I voted Lalonde initially, but after calming down abit i believe it to be the roster composition. Well the composition of the defense in particular.

Signing Holl and then trading for Petry really doesn't look good, if his name wasn't Yzerman we would be giving him alot more flack for that. Edvinsson should've have been up this year, he makes rookie mistakes, but those should've been ironed out this year. On top of that we will go into next season basically stuck with Holl and Petry, which could really mess with the cap situation.

This team is top-10 in GF, but bottom-10 in GA. On top of that this team was bottom-5 in Corsi and Fenwick last time i checked, and according to my eye test it's because our defense could not transition the puck in an orderly manner. I concur with the comment above me basically.

 

[OgeeOgelthorpe]

I voted Lalonde initially, but after calming down abit i believe it to be the roster composition. Well the composition of the defense in particular.

Signing Holl and then trading for Petry really doesn't look good, if his name wasn't Yzerman we would be giving him alot more flack for that. Edvinsson should've have been up this year, he makes rookie mistakes, but those should've been ironed out this year. On top of that we will go into next season basically stuck with Holl and Petry, which could really mess with the cap situation.

This team is top-10 in GF, but bottom-10 in GA. On top of that this team was bottom-5 in Corsi and Fenwick last time i checked, and according to my eye test it's because our defense could not transition the puck in an orderly manner. I concur with the comment above me basically.

Only 3 D at any given time were effective at moving the puck. It didn’t help that some forwards on the team were really bad in their own zone. But majority of the retrieval and transition problem is on D.

Seider has definitely regressed under Lalonde and it’s starting to worry me. I don’t think it’s people getting the book on him , but he looked better as a rookie than his last two years. We’re seeing Seider carry the puck up ice less, less physicality, and less swagger overall. Rookie Mo looked like a future top 5 guy. Now he’s looking more like a guy that’s top 25.

 

[sepster]

Where did you get those numbers? Detroit had 27 regulation wins and 38 regulation and OT wins.

Sorry, I mislabeled them "regulation wins" rather than just "wins." The point still stands, though, under the old point system, they would be in.

 

[Nut Upstrom]

It sucks that they missed but they still met or exceeded everyone's expectations. If we finished 10 points lower but didn't have multiple losing streaks somehow less people would complaining which is crazy.

I get they got the hopes up, but they fell short, it is what it is. There's a lot of positives to take from the season and plenty of room for improvement next year.

Expectations are fluid, changing things. They about met my pre-season expectations, and I'd be happy to hear they would had you told me this before the season.
My expectations changed drastically when it looked like they had the second wild card spot locked down and were going to battle Tampa for the first. So that expectation - the expectation I am focused on and most concerned with now - they shat all over it and came nowhere close to meeting it. Not sure how fans (or a coach for Pete's sake!) can appease and mollify themselves with the first when their ears are still ringing from being slapped in the face by the second.

 

[One Horse Town]

The Wings had exactly zero "no-shows" in their last three games vs. Washington, what turned out to be their three most important games of the season. You need to adjust your definition of a "no-show" if it includes outshooting a team 43-23. Wings also made a habit this year of showing up in the third period, leading the league with 11 comeback wins. They showed up late in the season in Florida, getting three points in two games most people thought they had no chance in. They showed up late in the season vs. Buffalo, shutting down the Thompson line in an otherwise blah but "must-win" game.

This was an inconsistent, mediocre team that had a number of piss-poor efforts, especially when Larkin was out. Every team in the league had no-show games over the course of the season. Focusing on a few as the cause of missing the playoffs is just cherry-picking to suit a narrative.

My narrative! They missed the playoffs while controlling their own destiny and then not.