DETROIT - The Red Wings have played well the past two games, with structure for the most part, and carried the lead into the third period.
Both times they've surrendered the tying goal while outnumbered and then lost in overtime. They continue to squander opportunities at home and hand points to Atlantic Division rivals with whom they are competing for a playoff spot.
Wednesday's 3-2 loss to the Boston Bruins at Little Caesars Arena was particularly frustrating - and damaging - after David Pastrnak tied it with 1:26 remaining in regulation and Brad Marchand scored 35 seconds into OT.
The Bruins (15-9-4) occupy the third and final playoff spot in the Atlantic and are five points ahead of the Red Wings (11-13-7). To make matters worse, Boston has three games in hand.
The Red Wings, 0-6 in overtime, are 1-5-5 in their past 11. Aside from a few ugly losses during this stretch, they believe they've played well but haven't gotten results.
That's not good enough.
"You won't get anywhere with moral victories. You have to find a way to win," captain Henrik Zetterberg said. "We're finding ways to lose.
"We got to keep doing it game after game and probably create a little bit more offense (they have four goals in the past three games). We got the defense down. We have to find a way to get some more goals."
Said Tomas Tatar: "I thought we played good again. We did a lot of right stuff. We came up short. It's always hard to talk about it, but we can't get frustrated."
Dylan Larkin's shorthanded breakaway goal snapped a 1-1 tie with 8:36 remaining in regulation.
But with goaltender Tuukka Rask pulled for the extra skater, Pastrnak one-timed a pass from Marchand past Jimmy Howard.
In overtime, Gustav Nyquist fell in the corner in the Boston end, creating a two-on-one for the Bruins. Marchand, defended by Mike Green, converted a backhand shot from a sharp angle.
"When Larks gets that goal, it'd be nice to close it out because that's two big points and to not give them any and now they walk away with two and we only get one, it's a big difference," Justin Abdelkader said.
The Red Wings can't explain their difficulty in overtime.
"That area is killing us for sure," Tatar said. "That's many points we lost.
"If you would ask me and I (wasn't) on this team, I would say we have (some) of the fastest guys. It's tough to explain why we are not doing well."
He tried to explain anyway.
"You can hold the puck, you can get them tired, make them stay longer on the ice," Tatar said. "You can't shoot every chance, maybe wait for a better one. More and more teams are trying to figure it out, because when this rule came to the league, it was more free-for-all. Now you can see some teams are doing it on purpose and doing some things that looked structured."
Red Wings coach Jeff Blashill said they have looked into player usage, their system and other factors, searching for answers to their OT woes.
"I think the biggest thing in those three-on-three situations is you got to make offensive and defensive plays and we haven't made enough of those," he said.