The Red Wings didn’t make the splashes at the trade deadline that everybody thought they would. Due to a nagging neck injury and the injection of Erik Karlsson and Ryan McDonagh to the market, Mike Green was not moved. Luke Glendening, despite receiving heavy interest from the Toronto Maple Leafs, is still a Red Wing.

Ken Holland managed to salvage his trade deadline with one hail mary trade that came down to the dying seconds of the deadline. There had been rumours that Tomas Tatar had been asked about, but nothing concrete was reported. The general consensus is that the Vegas Golden Knights overpaid. I agree.

There’s no doubt that losing Tatar hurts Detroit’s offense, but it helps the team long-term immensely. Adding a second first round pick to this year’s deep draft gives us a second chance at acquiring a young high-end player. The second in 2019 and third in 2020 are just gravy, addind to Detroit’s already large pool of picks in the next few years.

While Tatar’s start for Vegas has been less than inspiring, Detroit has certainly felt his absence as they embarked on a five game road trip this past week, losing two of their three games.

Jimmy Howard must be exhausted. He has started in every game since Petr Mrazek was traded. Against the Rangers in Madison Square Garden last Sunday, it was the second game he played in two days. He faced over 30 shots and kept Detroit in the game as they gave up a two goal lead through the second and third periods. It almost ended up in a shootout, but Trevor Daley decided that he had enough and scored with six seconds left in overtime.

The team then rolled into St. Louis to play a struggling Blues team and, honestly, they didn’t put up a bad performance. It was a 1-0 game for most of it, with Scottie Upshall scoring a dirty goal early in the second period. St. Louis didn’t add to that before the final five minutes of the game when Alex Pietrangelo made it 2-0. A late Athanasiou goal kept the Wings in it, but it wasn’t enough as they dropped the game 2-1.

Finally, the Wings took on the dangerous Jets at the MTS Centre in Winnipeg in a high-scoring, competitive game. For how good the Jets are, Detroit held their own against the Central Division powerhouse. After taking a one goal lead, they dropped two goals in less than a minute and trailed for the rest of the game. Anthony Mantha and Trevor Daley added goals later in the game, but Detroit ended up losing 4-3. The possession percentages say that Detroit was chasing Winnipeg all game, but it really didn’t feel like it. They played a solid game, but just couldn’t get that tying goal.

Andreas Athanasiou has bounced back as of late and added a goale in the Rangers game and in the Blues game. Kronwall’s two points came on the same night against the Jets. Daley has got three goals in his last four games, bringing some much needed offense to the Red Wings blueline.

The other standout two point week was Tyler Bertuzzi, who was bumped up to the second line to fill in the Tomas Tatar gap. He won’t score the goals that Tatar did, but look at what playing with better minutes and better players has done for him. He’s starting to put up points again. I’m looking forward to watching him down the stretch to see what he can really do with his promoted role.

Athanasiou’s play as of late has bumped him up over Mike Green and Tomas Tatar in the season-long points rankings. Of course, it helped that Mike Green missed five games due to injury. Still, a thirty point season from Athanasiou is encouraging for the young speedster.

Larkin is still holding on to that top spot, despite Zetterberg’s strong play in this second half of year. Larkin’s offense has certainly slowed as of late, but it’s nice still seeing him putting up at least a point every week. He hasn’t had a terribly cold stretch all season yet (jynx!).

After a strong start to the season, Justin Abdelkader has gone cold. It’s largely due to being demoted to the bottom-6 on Detroit’s checking line with Frans Nielsen and Darren Helm, but getting time on the powerplay should give him some offense. Of course, that would require Detroit’s powerplay to be productive.

On the fancy side, Detroit’s possession pretty much evened out over the course of this week’s three games, sustaining their season average 48% Corsi-For percentage. They put up a season-best 64.36 Corsi-For percentage against the Blues, which makes that loss even saltier. They could have really used a last minute goal from Tatar in that game.

Not a great week for Detroit’s bottom-6 who all find themselves in the negative relative Corsi-For territory. It’s encouraging seeing our young top-6 forwards at the top of the chart, though. And then there’s David Booth. I don’t know what to say about that one.

Detroit’s out of this one, but watching Boston and Toronto duke it out for second place is fun. After last night’s outdoor game, the Leafs have lost three in a row. With Boston’s four games in hand, they may run away with the second seed. At his point, I’m feeling pretty confident that Tampa Bay is going to win this division and the Stanley Cup. I’m sure I’ll be eating these words in June.

So, just like last week, the Wings are seven points out of a wild card spot. After dropping Tatar, I can’t see them climbing these standings. It’s a very tough uphill battle. Florida has somehow battled their way back into the conversation and they still have three games in hand. They are the last team in the Atlantic Division that has any hope of making it.

This week’s player of the week is Jimmy Howard. Howie started in all three games this week, faced a total of 105 shots, and put up a save percentage of .924. If you include last Saturday’s Carolina game, his save percentage over the last four games is .934. Since the Mrazek trade, a lot of pressure has been put on Howie to be the true number one for this team and he’s lived up to it. Solid week for the veteran goaltender.

What became painfully obvious this week was Detroit’s lack of a gamebreaker. The one game they did win was in overtime and they lost the other two by one goal. One more goal was all they needed and both could have had very different outcomes.

Tomas Tatar wasn’t a true gamebreaker, but he came up big when they needed him to more than once this season. Now that he’s gone, the team is left with another offensive hole. The post-Tatar Red Wings are even further away from having a difference maker in close games. For this season and next, it’s for the best. Let’s maintain our focus on drafting high and building a competitive team in the 2020-21 season.

There’s no rest for the wicked and Detroit’s schedule shows it. They have four games in the next six days, with a quick stop at home for a match-up against Tomas Tatar and the Vegas Golden Knights. Then, they are back on the road for another five game road trip.

Sunday, March 4 – @ Minnesota Wild, 7:00 P.M. ET

Tuesday, March 6 – @ Boston Bruins, 7:00 P.M. ET

Thursday, March 8 – vs. Vegas Golden Knights, 7:30 P.M. ET

Friday, March 9 – @ Columbus Blue Jackets, 7:00 P.M. ET