The Free Press’s Helene St. James posted a morning column which discusses the Red Wings’ 2-1 OT loss to the Arizona Coyotes on Saturday–and their 4-game road losing streak overall (0-3-and-1)–as a product of a heavy schedule (the Red Wings and Canadiens are the only 2 teams to have already played 20 games), a lack of practice time and a cavalcade of mental mistakes:
[The Red Wings] capped an unsuccessful trip with an overtime loss to the worst team in the NHL, falling 2-1 to the Arizona Coyotes on Saturday. The Wings don’t play again until Wednesday, and that three-day break is welcome after playing 11 times in 19 days, including two sets of back-to-backs.
“We’ve played a ton of hockey,” said captain Dylan Larkin after the game at Gila River Arena. “We’ve really grinded, and you know what, it hasn’t been going our way but there’s a lot to look back on this stretch. We’ve played some good hockey, especially at home. The schedule till Christmas is a lot less games, so we have to find a way to play some good hockey before Christmas.”
The Wings (8-10-2) host the St. Louis Blues on Thanksgiving eve and then have two days before hosting the Buffalo Sabres. That will offer a chance for some high-energy practices, which have had to be limited this month to conserve energy for games.
“We’re going to get home, and we’re going to have a couple hard practices and start figuring some things out and get back to what makes us successful, which is playing hard, playing together and playing fast,” Larkin said.
I’m not sure how he does it, but coach Jeff Blashill found some positives to take out of Saturday’s loss, and they’re valid ones, especially given the fact that the Wings didn’t give up 5 goals in a loss for the first time in five tries:
“We played good enough to win the game, so it’s unfortunate to walk out and not have won,” coach Jeff Blashill said “But over a long period of time, you just have to do it right. And if you do it right and defend more similar to how we defended tonight — we created enough scoring chances to win, I thought overall we defended much better — you’re going to find yourself to lots of wins. Ultimately we have to get back, get ourselves reset, and try to find a way to win on Wednesday.”
