This is the Jeff Merrick Show on the Sportsnet Radio Network.

Winning is hard, and we're finding out how hard it is, especially real hockey.

It's the national hockey, like every night's stuff, but this is next level type stuff.

And tonight, our guys stepped up.

Okay, so that's Derek Lalone, the Detroit Red Wings, head coach of that squad.

Newsy, if you will, for you old schoolers.

I want to get to this Ryan Smith tweet here in a couple of moments.

People believe that I'm trolling the coyotes by amplifying and adding to it.

I am not, but we'll get there in a couple of seconds.

So that's Derek Lelon, head coach of the Detroit Red Wings.

The Detroit Red Wings, who all of a sudden find themselves in a wild card position.

But as we've seen with the wildcard positions in the Eastern Conference, specifically

WC2, we had a situation where five teams occupied that spot over the course of five days,

five different teams.

April 3rd, it was the Washington Capitals with Wild Card 2. On the 4th, it was the Islanders. On the 5th, it was the Flyers. And on the 6th was the Red Wings. And that's where we sit right now. The Detroit Red Wings right now, who knows? I mean, Pittsburgh Penguins could leapfrog them tonight with their victory over

the Toronto Maple Leafs. Right now, the Red Rings are in that second wildcard spot. I don't know how to describe it. We've all come up with sort of different terms and ways to try to figure out how we should describe what we're seeing here. The, does anybody want this spot race, whether it's the Islanders, the wings, the penguins, the capitals, the flyers.

And if you squint really hard before this weekend,, whether it's the Islanders, the wings, the penguins, the capitals, the

flyers, and if you squint really hard before this weekend, you could have said the New Jersey

Devils, but no longer.

The interesting thing about this one is Detroit finds themselves in a very unique spot

because the Detroit Red Wings only have one path,

and that is Wildcard too.

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