I’m going to keep this brief and not get into the specifics of the game.

I think it’s time to accept that this team has finally run out of gas, that all the hockey they’ve played the past couple years has caught up with them, that the toll this season and the final stretch took on an already-fatigued team is showing in this series. It’s time to accept that this team doesn’t have enough left to pull out of this and go on. And it’s time to accept that a long summer is what they need to refuel.

It’s disappointing. We hardcore fans build up a certain belief that the team is able to overcome anything, that if they just will it, they can do anything (even if sometimes they don’t–but they could!). It’s disappointing to be hit upside the head with a reality presented by a team that couldn’t hold on to at home.

Outsider will view that as choking or something similar. But my feeling is the team is gassed and that no amount of will is going to change that. We can bet that nobody on the red side wanted it more than the actual players. But there are limits to endurance and I think the Wings have it them.

This team hasn’t always fought to the level we expect of them this season. They certainly didn’t when fatigue was less of a legitimate reason, back in January and February. But they did in March and they did something that didn’t seem possible at the start of the calendar year: they made the playoffs and against considerable odds. This is new to me as a Red Wings fan, but I gotta say that means something.

Does it fulfill my expectations for higher levels of success? Absolutely not. But watch them. They’re doing things fatigued teams do and at some point, I have to stop being the backseat-driving fan that demands the impossible and admit that if they don’t have the gas, they just don’t have it. And no amount of railing about it is going to change that.

Now, I would like nothing more than to be wrong and see the Wings come out guns blazing Thursday night to start a comeback for the ages. But whatever happens, I’m going to be proud of this team and what it’s done this year. I’d been frustrated that they couldn’t overcome the Sharks and the officials so far in this series, but last night was a bit of an eye-opener to the reality that they don’t have enough left in the tank.

So. Disappointed and bummed out, but proud.