DETROIT — The Red Wings missed out on the playoffs on the final night of the regular season on a tiebreaker, after finishing with the same number of points as Washington.

The Wings certainly had the look of a playoff team, the feel of it. And heading into this season, after the first week of unrestricted free agency, general manager Steve Yzerman feels the Wings should be just as good next season.

"I don't think it's any different than I felt last year," Yzerman said during Thursday's media conference. "We're in that group of teams that has a chance to compete for the playoffs if we stay healthy and if our goaltending is good and you get some, maybe unexpected production some players outplay your expectations, you might get in.

"Or you might miss by a point on the last game of the season. That's the fine line of it all."

The Wings have missed the playoffs the last eight seasons, including the last five with Yzerman managing the Wings. Yzerman admitted to feeling some pressure to get into the playoffs, but he's not going to change his master plan.

"Our fan base wants to win and we came close last year in making the playoffs," Yzerman said. "The finish of our season was very exciting and dramatic. Maybe a little misleading in that we have to really improve like we've talked in some areas, we have to get deeper. We'd love to make the playoffs this year and I'm hopeful, but we'll continue to build a strong nucleus of players that will be around here.

"Pressure, whatever you want to call it, will not change what I'm trying to do."

The Wings were able to re-sign free agent forwards Patrick Kane and Christian Fischer, and signed forwards Vladimir Tarasenko and Tyler Motte, goaltenders Cam Talbot and Jack Campbell (Port Huron) and defensemen Erik Gustafsson and William Lagesson.

They didn't re-sign forwards David Perron and Daniel Sprong, defenseman Shayne Gostisbehere and goaltender James Reimer, and traded away defenseman Jake Walman (San Jose) and forward Robby Fabbri (Anaheim) to create financial space under the salary cap.

"I like our group, our roster today," Yzerman said. "Compared to last year's group, it's a little bit different, might be a little bit better fit as far as roles for players. I expect it to be a comparable team next year."

Yzerman touched on a variety of topics during an almost 25-minute session:

—Yzerman admitted to having interest in one of the major free agents Monday who signed elsewhere.

"One that might be a fit, and these things happen really quickly and we decided it was going to be major surgery here (on the roster, for salary cap reasons) to get it done and we didn't want to waste everybody's time in getting there," Yzerman said. "It was going to be a challenge to get it done."

—Yzerman had interest in bringing back Perron (who went to Ottawa) and Gostisbehere (Carolina).

"With both players we talked with their agents right up until the free agency period (began), but we couldn't agree on contracts (that worked) for both sides," Yzerman said.

—The Wings were able to replace the offense lost, somewhat, with the signing of Tarasenko, a former 40-goal scorer who has been a consistent 20-goal scorer in his career.

"A left shot winger, a bigger body, a little bit different type of player than our wingers like Lucas Raymond and Alex DeBrincat, a bigger body, a straight-ahead guy, and strong going to the net," Yzerman said.

—With the signing of Talbot, Yzerman wants a level of insurance heading into training camp, just in case Husso is not healthy. Husso missed most of last season, and the Wings' plan of having three goaltenders proved to be the correct one.

This is a similar plan, with Talbot, Husso and Alex Lyon, and Yzerman will let the situation play out.

"We brought in three goaltenders last year, and our goal wasn't to go with three throughout the season and we debated initially of placing one of the goalies on waivers and waited, and with injuries we were glad we didn't," Yzerman said. "We'll see how Ville's heath is in training camp. We expect him 100% ready to go. We'll play it by ear and we'll figure it out as we go along."

—The Wings expect internal improvement will account for some of the lost goals with Perron, Gostisbehere, Fabbri, Walman and Sprong gone.

"We're going on Tarasenko to add to that (goal scoring)," Yzerman said. "Just looking internally, we expect a little more out of Lucas Raymond, Alex DeBrincat, his (DeBrincat) shooting percentage for his career was down a little bit last year, and the great scoring chances he had, hit the bar and went out. His expected goals will turn into goals next year and his numbers will go up. On the back end, Erik Gustafsson will contribute to some of the offense lost.

"Ultimately, hopefully we can keep a few more out of the net and that maybe it nets out in a positive way."

—Yzerman may not be done with his offseason maneuvering.

"I would say there’s another move possible, we’d consider that," Yzerman said. "I don't have anything on the go at the moment. We kind of tally up the goals in, the goals out."

—The Wings have four restricted free agents to sign in defenseman Moritz Seider and forwards Lucas Raymond, Joe Veleno and Jonatan Berggren, with approximately $20 million left to spend under the salary cap.

"We can estimate on a shorter-term deal and on a longer-term deal," Yzerman said. "(We) set aside a certain amount of money in the budget for them and as free agency went along and we're trying to get our own guys signed we had to tweak things a little bit. But it hasn't changed what we think those four players are going to come in at. We will get contracts done with them. It's just a question of when and what term we do on all of them."

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