Last night the Detroit Red Wings moved two points closer to clinching their 23rd consecutive playoff appearance. The Wings visited the last place Buffalo Sabres and came away with a 4-2 victory.
With the win the Wings now sit at 90 points on the season, five ahead of the 9th place Washington Capitals. With three games remaining the only thing left is for Detroit to “officially” clinch their post-season berth.
The Sabres received two goals from youngster Zemgus Girgensons, who will be a bright spot in the rebuild for Buffalo. Detroit fell behind early in this one, but it was a three goal third period that buried the Sabres. Pavel Datsyuk scored his first goal since returning from injury and now has 17 on the season. Datsyuk will be a huge boost for this Detroit team in the playoffs as he is a premier two-way player in the league.
Heading towards the final three games, Detroit will need a lone point to secure their playoff spot. For Detroit, a team that has been battling serious injuries all season long, that will be an incredible achievement. Since the Olympic break alone Detroit has been without Captain Henrik Zetterberg, Pavel Datysuk until very recently, Dan Cleary, Jonathan Ericsson at times, Stephen Weiss, Johan Franzen at times, Daniel Alfredsson has been in and out…the list goes on for this team.
The most impressive thing about the Red Wings season is that they battled back without their best players in the lineup for the past two months. The significance of that cannot be ignored for a team that was supposedly “over the hill”. If anything the future is bright with the likes of Gustav Nyquist, Tomas Tatar and Dan Dekeyser.
Mike Babcock should be nominated for the Jack Adams trophy, fitting considering that with the win Tuesday night, Babcock overtook Jack Adams as the winningest coach in Red Wings History.
Detroit has their first chance to clinch on Wednesday night when they play the Pittsburgh Penguins.