Helene St. James | Detroit Free Press

Helene St. James, Detroit Free Press

Raj Mehta USA TODAY Sports

While the Detroit Red Wings were winning their third straight game, Nicklas Lidstrom watched from the stands at Little Caesars Arena.

The four-time Stanley Cup champion, seven-time Norris Trophy recipient, Olympic gold medalist and first-ballot Hall of Famer has done some scouting for the Wings since retiring in 2012. Among those he has watched this year is Swedish defenseman Rasmus Dahlin, the top prize of the 2018 draft.

Lidstrom gave Dahlin an endorsement that should make Wings fans swoon: “He is better than I was at his age.”

Which is why the Wings' three-game winning streak is so inconvenient. The lower a team finishes in the standings, the better the odds of winning the right to draft Dahlin. Beyond that, it’s better for overall draft positioning. Facing Ottawa on Saturday was a chance for the Wings to narrow the Sens' edge over them to two points.

The Wings won, 2-0. They haven’t been able to win more than two games in a row all season except for one four-game winning streak.

Raj Mehta USA TODAY Sports

Dylan Larkin, who netted his fifth goal in the last seven games, maintains players don’t pay attention to the fact it’d be better for the club to lose.

“We have a job to do,” he said. “We have a lot of young guys in here, so every day is an audition and guys are trying to earn whatever it may be – more ice time next year. Your position on this team and in this league has to be earned every day.”

Jimmy Howard, who recorded his first shutout of the season, in his 59th game, said “as players, we still want to go out there and perform and especially at home.”

Fair enough. Players should want to win. Larkin is finishing on a strong note, with 10 points his last nine games. Anthony Mantha set him up on Saturday, and Andreas Athanasiou had the other goal. Those three are key parts of the rebuild.

“For us to win, we are going to need him, we need Mantha, AA – we need those guys to score,” coach Jeff Blashill said. “At one point, it was just (Henrik Zetterberg’s) line every night and now we have multiple lines. So that’s one reason.

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Photos: Red Wings 2, Senators 0

“We’ve played similar games to the last few games and not won for a long stretch and I think when you play those games over and over again, you’re bound to win and now we’re winning.”

The Wings have three games left – Tuesday at Columbus against a team that has home ice in the first round of the playoffs to play for, then Thursday against Montreal and next Saturday against the Islanders. Losing to Montreal (like they did this past Tuesday) would be huge, as the Canadiens are right below the Wings in the standings.

Granted, the team that finishes 31st only has 18.5 percent odds of winning the right to draft first overall. The Wings can’t finish that low thanks to this winning streak. The Senators dropped to 30th with Saturday’s loss. Maybe the Wings luck out, like New Jersey, Philadelphia, and Dallas all did last year, when neither finished in the bottom three but won in the lottery to draft first, second and third overall, respectively.

It is considered a very good draft overall, with choice selections including Evan Bouchard, Adam Boqvist, Quinn Hughes, Filip Zadina and Andrei Svechnikov – but Dahlin is considered a franchise defenseman.

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Blashill was asked about Lidstrom’s comments and the organizational value of losing.

“Let me touch first on the first part,” Blashill said. “What made Nick the best of his generation and arguably maybe the best of all times was how efficient a hockey player he was. He was able to create offense without taking big risks, he was able to create offense and be great defensively. He would never have been flashy the way this Dahlin is flashy. That’s why I would be cautious on anybody getting compared to Nick because he wouldn’t have looked great as a 17-, 16-year old, because he’d have looked steady.”

(It’s a fair point: Lidstrom was available to the Wings in the third round, at 53rd overall, in the 1989 draft).

“Winning and losing – listen, as a coach and players, we’re here to win,” Blashill said. “That’s just the reality of it. I understand the importance of a draft pick, I do, I get that 100 percent. We need three superstars in their prime. I get that 100 percent and I’m hoping we get one in the draft one way or the other.

“When that clock starts, you’re not worth your salt if you’re not trying to win the game, whether you are a player or coach. I think one of the big things in our organization I’ve talked lots about is the importance of culture. We’re not far off – we’re closer than other people would ever give us credit for because of the culture and I’m not losing the culture.”