The Free Press’s Helene St. James posted her customary morning-published column regarding the Red Wings’ struggles over the course of last night’s 6-3 loss to the Dallas Stars. Wings captain Dylan Larkin in particular was very hard on himself and his teammates in the post-game Zoom call:
“I was probably the most lousy out there as a leader,” he said. “I wasn’t hanging onto pucks and I wasn’t leading the way for the forwards up front. We need to be harder on pucks, we need to support each other and get pucks on net and find ways to score.”
When the Wings started the season 2-2, Larkin spoke of how noticeable it was that, unlike last year, this season’s squad wanted the puck. That confidence has ebbed. The Wings were under siege Thursday, shriveling before a strong Stars forecheck. The Wings had seven power plays, had 11:41 with an extra skater, and had just one power play goal, from Tyler Bertuzzi, to show for it.
“Now we’re fighting against ourselves,” Larkin said. “Not actually fighting, but we have the puck on our stick and we’re nervous to make plays. We don’t want it on our stick. We have a man advantage and we’re second-guessing everything, we’re not moving it around, we’re not hard on it to get the entries we want and to get set up.
“I think every power play goal we’ve scored this year we’ve just kept it simple and thrown it to the net. We didn’t do that early enough, didn’t do it enough. That’s where we have to create momentum for our team.”
Continued, with quite a bit from coach Blashill about the Wings being undermanned on offense due to their COVID reserve list players…
