Detroit Red Wings still encouraged despite dwindling playoff hopes. Here's why

PITTSBURGH — The runway is short, but it is still there, and that is what the Detroit Red Wings take into their next game.

Their hopes of reaching the playoffs now come down to how they perform their last three games, starting with Saturday against the Maple Leafs in Toronto.

The Wings banked a point in Pittsburgh Thursday to reach 85; that keeps them close to the last wild card berth in the Eastern Conference, but needing to leapfrog the Penguins (86 points, three games left) and the Washington Capitals (85 points, they own the tiebreaker, and three games left).

"There’s a path," Dylan Larkin said after the 6-5 overtime loss to the Penguins. "We have to go into Toronto and get two points. I don’t think there’s a better place to do it on a Saturday night. They’re going to be gunning for us after the last time we were in there. So, again to pick ourselves up and regroup — it’s going to be difficult, but I know this group has it in us."

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Coach Derek Lalonde emerged from the visitors dressing room shortly after the final buzzer sounded at PPG Paints Arena.

"The guys did a great job," Lalonde said. "I don’t usually address the guys after a game, but I had to address them after this simply because that was a huge point. To be down with seven minutes left, two goals on the road, everything that had happened — the fourth goal against was certainly a tough one. The fact we come out on top of them, we get a couple looks, we earn a power play, we hit the post, and then we give a freebie on a shorthanded goal.

"I give our guys a ton of credit for battling and staying in it and getting a point. There’s still a path there because of that point."

Larkin was key to getting that point, making it 5-4 with seven minutes to play. But it was, on the Wings' side, Lucas Raymond's night, as he recorded his second career hat trick in a game of incredible magnitude.

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"I give Lucas Raymond a lot of credit, he showed some stones tonight to play the way he played," Larkin said. "He was the best player on the ice out there with some world class players. That’s how you show up and play in a game like that, and for a young guy to do that is unbelievable."

Of the team effort, Larkin said that, "the positive is the no quit. It hurts, but one thing our group has done is, we picked ourselves up and we’ve come out and kept fighting."

Another positive was Alex DeBrincat, who came into the night with just seven points in his previous 17 games: He had a hand in all of Raymond's goals. The DeBrincat-Larkin-Raymond line combined for 10 points.

"Luc’s been building his game for a while now, and that line had good jump," Lalonde said. "DeBrincat had a good game for us. Dylan drives us every night. A hat trick on the road in a must-win this late in the season, really good on him. We needed it for the point. "

Since the Wings righted themselves in mid-March following a seven-game skid, Raymond has a team-leading 14 points in 13 games.

"It’s fun games," he said. "We have a lot of competitive guys in here and these are the games you look forward. We’re just looking forward to Toronto and have to finish all really strong here.

"I think it’s a lot about not getting too high, not getting too low, trying to stay as steady as possible, especially now with three games left. We still have a shot at this. I think for us, it’s about coming out flying against Toronto."

Contact Helene St. James at hstjames@freepress.com. Follow her @helenestjames.

Read more on the Detroit Red Wings and sign up for our Red Wings newsletter. Her latest book, “On the Clock: Behind the Scenes with the Detroit Red Wings at the NHL Draft,” is available from  Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Triumph Books. Personalized copies available via her e-mail.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Detroit Red Wings cling to playoff hopes with three games left