George Sipple

Detroit Free Press

The Detroit Red Wings were expecting more from Tomas Tatar this season.

He was supposed to chip in offensively and take pressure off older veterans like Henrik Zetterberg and Pavel Datsyuk, who are on the decline.

But Tatar failed to improve on his numbers from 2014-15. After scoring a career-high 29 goals and 56 points last season, Tatar scored 21 goals and 45 points this season.

“It was different stuff this year than last year,” Tatar said. “It was different position for me.”

Tatar played with Datsyuk and Darren Helm last season but was shuffled with different players this season. He ended up on the fourth line in the playoffs with Joakim Andersson and Andreas Athanasiou.

“With different position comes different responsibilities,” Tatar said. “Whatever I played, I tried to do best, bring the energy, help the team as much as I could.”

Tatar admitted he was feeling pressure to score more this season. He signed a three-year, $8.25 million deal in 2014, so he will be a restricted free agent after the 2016-17 season.

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Wings general manager Ken Holland has said he’ll explore trades in the off-season as he seeks to add size to the roster. It’s possible the Wings could dangle Tatar in a trade.

If that happens, Tatar said he would understand.

“It would be really tough to change the jersey but it’s a part of this job,” Tatar said. “Maybe some team will need you more than this team.”

Tatar is hoping to play for another team soon. He wants to play for Slovakia at the IIHF World Championship, which starts May 6 in Russia.

Holland said Tatar was dealing with a rotator cuff injury. Tatar wouldn’t specify what the injury was, but said he had to be cleared by team doctors in order to play.

“I had a little medical problem, so I have to do some stuff here,” Tatar said. “It kind of came from the regular season and it went all the way to the playoffs. I don’t really want to talk about it now till I will know 100% what it is.”

Contact George Sipple: gsipple@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @georgesipple. Check out our Red Wings Xtra app on Apple and Android!

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