Helene St. James

Detroit Free Press

The Detroit Red Wings look at their first-round series and contend it’s far from over, because when you’re drowning, you grab at anything.

Having Jekylled-and-Hyded their way through the regular season, the Wings may well dress as their good and disciplined version in tonight’s Game 5, but the odds they face are scary. The Tampa Bay Lightning has three chances to win one game and advance, and two are at Amalie Arena. The Wings must win all three games to advance.

One at a time, of course.

“It’s far from over,” Justin Abdelkader said Wednesday, the day after a deflating 3-2 loss at home. “There’s a lot of hockey to be played. I think the games have all been really close. It’s just a matter of making the most of our opportunities. If we go down there and win one game, we know we can turn this series around.

“We’re doing a lot of good things out there, and if we correct our mistakes and make a few adjustments, we’re a very optimistic group.”

For that optimism to grow, a slew of guys need to start exerting themselves. Henrik Zetterberg didn’t hesitate to agree when asked if more was needed from him, what with only one point, a goal, in these playoffs. Pavel Datsyuk has no points. Coach Jeff Blashill explained that based on the internal statistics, Datsyuk was plus-one in scoring chances created versus scoring chances allowed, and Zetterberg was plus-two.

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“It’s not like they’re not having an impact on the series from their play,” Blashill said, “but we need more production from multiple people, including them.”

Tomas Tatar has struggled so much he looked vulnerable to be pulled for Game 4. Blashill and his staff considered whether to insert Teemu Pulkkinen to have available for the power play (that dropped to 1-for-21 for the series after going 0-for-4 Tuesday, while the Lightning went 3-for-5).

Blashill explained his decision-making process includes weighing “the idea of what he could do to help it versus the actual application of it when he hasn’t been on it for so long. Can he actually develop the type of chemistry you need to have success.”

It’s a red flag if a team has to rely on a regular-season spare part to resuscitate their playoff series. It shouldn’t have to come to that. It’s on Zetterberg, Datsyuk, Tatar, Abdelkader, Gustav Nyquist and Brad Richards. It’s on Niklas Kronwall, and it’s on Jonathan Ericsson, the latter of whom took the penalty that enabled the winning goal Tuesday.

“I would spread blame throughout the entire team for the reason we’re down, 3-1,” Blashill said. “And I don’t think they are vast differences, they’re minor differences.”

The Wings are correct that the games have been close, including the two that weren’t one-goal finals. Their victory came in the game they didn’t self-destruct by taking inexcusable penalties, those taken in the offensive zone.

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“I think we’ve been playing good enough this series 5-on-5,” Zetterberg said. “Our special teams have to be better. If we do that, we’ll be fine.”

The Wings put themselves in position to get into the playoffs by turning in enough good performances when it mattered. In Game 4, when they had a chance to even the series, they played so poorly on special teams they appear to be going under. Asked again and again during the season about their power play and their inconsistency, no one had an answer. They still don’t.

“If we had a simple answer, it’d be easier to get corrected,” Kronwall said. “All we can do right now is look forward to going down to Tampa. All we can do is focus on winning one game.”

Contact Helene St. James: hstjames@freepress.com. Follow her on Twitter @helenestjames. Check out our Red Wings Xtra app on Apple and Android!