A long road ahead for the Red Wings

25-years in a row. Every year since 1991.

That’s how many years the Red Wings have made it to the playoffs.

“It is absolutely incredible to just think about, “ says Milford senior, Ryan Swindlehurst. “Making the playoffs for 25 consecutive seasons doesn’t just happen by chance.”

Throughout these 25-years, the Red Wings organization have done an incredible job with building this team for success. To make it to the playoffs every year for this long, you need to make moves for the long run, not just ones that will benefit now.

The Detroit Red Wings have always been a dominate hockey team in the NHL and that’s the reason that they have this streak. But how much longer will their so called “dominance” last?

During their 25-year playoff streak, the Red Wings have won the Stanley Cup four times. But as their playoff streak continues to grow, so does the drought of bringing home the Cup.

The last time the Red Wings won the Stanley Cup was in the playoffs of 2008, which ended in the first week of June. Barack Obama was elected as the President of the United States of America on November 4, 2008.

That means that since Obama has been the President of this country, the Red Wings have not won the Stanley Cup.

Since then, the Red Wings have only made it to the Stanley Cup Finals once, and that was the year after they won (they were also the division winners both seasons).

But in the past three playoff appearances, the Red Wings lost the in the first round to the Boston Bruins (2014) and the Tampa Bay Lightning (2015 and 2016).

This season, the Red Wings barely clinched a spot in the playoffs. It came down to the last game of the season and they didn’t even win.

During the regular season, there were multiple issues with this team in general. One problem that never seemed to be solved was their defense.

Throughout the season, there were many turnovers and bad plays made by Detroit’s defense. Many times, these turnovers and bad plays resulted in goals by the the other team.

“These are professional athletes that are paid a lot of money to do what they do,” says Milford junior, Jaylen Rock. “I don’t expect them to be perfect, but they should not be making this many mistakes.”

But since this is a team, blame cannot be put on only one part of a much bigger component.

Another problem that has been noticed by many is that the players do not shoot. They always try to do too much with the puck, often resulting in the puck not even reaching the goalie.

The great Wayne Gretzky once said, “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.” This quote can be taken quite literally when talking about this Red Wings team.

And finally, the goalies. In recent years, the Red Wings have only had one goaltender that has been consistent. Most of the time, it has been Jimmy Howard. But in the 2014-2015 season, Petr Mrazek was the top guy.

This season, however, none of the goalies were truly consistent. Between injuries and just poor performance, the Red Wings juggled goalies throughout this entire season. It’s a miracle that they managed to make an appearance in the playoffs, to be quite frank.

But with the end of postseason, came the end of an era. Pavel Datsyuk announced that he would be retiring and moving back to Russia. This is a huge blow to this team because Datsyuk was one of the most gifted playmakers in the game. He wasn’t called “the Magician” for no reason.

Now with the season over and Datsyuk leaving, they need to start thinking about the future.

In the 2017-2018 season, the Red Wings will be playing in their new arena, Little Caesar’s Arena. The new arena will attract younger players that will help build the future of the team.

With this being said, don’t expect them to make much noise in this upcoming season. They will more than like just try to get through the season with what they have and a few additions to the team.

It wouldn’t be surprising if their playoff streak ended next season.

25 years. Gone, just like that.