The Red Wings are in an absolute freefall

The Detroit Red Wings‘ playoff push has hit a bump in the road.

Seeing five-straight regulation losses, the Red Wings have fallen out of the playoff picture in the Eastern Conference, now three points back of the Atlantic Division rival Ottawa Senators for the second wildcard seed.

On Monday’s episode of Daily Faceoff LIVE, Frank Seravalli and Tyler Yaremchuk chatted about the Red Wings’ surprising inactivity at the deadline as the club battles to return to the Stanley Cup Playoffs for the first time since 2016.

Tyler Yaremchuk: The Red Wings are absolutely free falling right now. Five straight losses. They don’t do basically anything at the deadline because I’m not giving them credit for Petr Mrazek and Craig Smith. They take on Ottawa tonight. Is it a hyperbole to say their season is on the line?

Frank Seravalli: No, I don’t think so. Not especially when you consider the opponent. I think you’re right. I am fascinated by their deadline. What was Steve Yzerman into that ultimately didn’t get across the finish line, if anything? What does this say about his thought process and belief in this team? How is it possible that a bunch of other teams found a way to improve their defense core and the Red Wings didn’t? They sat by as division rival Toronto adds Brandon Carlo with multiple years left on his deal. I mean, I guess I can bring up the Jake Walman thing because they paid a second-round pick to move him to San Jose and then San Jose gets a first-round pick in return [from Edmonton]. It is unbelievable how poorly evaluated their talent has been on defense, which is the one big thing holding them back from the playoffs. They didn’t need a Patrick Kane, or Vladimir Tarasenko, or pick another guy. The Red Wings needed to find a way to improve at the deadline and they didn’t, flat out.

You can watch the full segment and the rest of the episode here: