Helene St. James

Detroit Free Press

The Detroit Red Wings are in a mess of their own creation.

They have seven games left in the regular season, and probably will need to win at least five of them to make the playoffs. They host the Buffalo Sabres on Monday, a game where Gordie Howe is expected to attend in honor of his 88th birthday Thursday.

The Wings spent Easter tied with Philadelphia at 85 points, but the Flyers possessed eighth place in the Eastern Conference by virtue of having a game in hand.

The Wings (who took Sunday off, as they are in the midst of three games in four days) blew a chance to gain ground with Saturday's inexcusable 7-2 loss to Pittsburgh. That same day, Boston won to pad their hold on third place in the Atlantic Division by three points.

March has seen the Wings play unconvincingly for the most part. They continually mismanage the puck, despite hard lessons learned as opponents have feasted on turnovers. Saturday, the Wings spent most of the second period in their own zone, falling behind 4-1. They could have applied a lesson just learned a game earlier, when the Canadiens turned a four-goal deficit into a 4-3 score, but the Wings didn't match the Habs' rallying attempts. A power play goal got it to 4-2, but it was the Penguins who responded.

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Regarding the power play, this marks the first time the Wings have gotten something out of it in four straight games. Make no mistake, that is among the root causes behind the Wings being in such danger of missing the playoffs.

Since March began, the Wings have not won more than two games in a row, twice. They haven't played well defensively, goaltender Petr Mrazek has been entirely too beatable, and numerous guys are coming up short offensively. Gustav Nyquist, rewarded last summer with a nearly $4 million pay raise, has contributed three goals his past 31 games. Tomas Tatar has four goals in his past 22 games. Henrik Zetterberg has one goal the past 17 games.

After Buffalo, the Wings play at Montreal, host Minnesota, play at Toronto, host the Flyers, then finish up with games at Boston and the Rangers. If the Wings don't clean up their act, that April 9th finale is going to linger all summer.

Contact Helene St. James: hstjames@freepress.com. Follow her on Twitter @helenestjames.

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