The Detroit Red Wings face a stiff task in attempting to earn a playoff spot in the stacked Atlantic Division, but Red Wings coach Derek Lalonde made it very clear this Monday that his team has to “shut out the noise” of media types predicting the Red Wings’ early demise. The Detroit News’s Ted Kulfan notes that the Red Wings’ GM echoed Lalonde’s remarks when Yzerman spoke with the media last week, too:
“You try to push the noise away and that’s the media,” Lalonde said. “I stopped reading because it’s so negative on us. Some people have us no chance at making the playoffs. The highest (most optimistic) article I read is a 14% chance of us making the playoffs. Everyone is writing us off. I get it, it’s not a knock on our guys. It’s just the reality of the division, the conference.”
Yzerman, in his preseason interview with the media, also alluded to the strong Atlantic Division. Yzerman wants to see the Wings go through the opening weeks of the regular season before forming an opinion on his team.
“I look at our division and I’m not sure what to expect from some teams that continue to get better and teams that lost players,” Yzerman said. “We’ll get into the season and see how we match up, how we do through the first quarter of the season and then kind of have a better idea of where we’re at. I’d like to think we’re a better team, that we’re a more competitive team. We’ll see if that puts us in a position to compete for a playoff spot.”
The talk of playoffs, or bettering what the Wings accomplished last season, has been discussed said captain Dylan Larkin.
“Going into this season, I know Steve and Newsie (Lalonde) have not really set an expectation,” Larkin said. “The guys in the room, we talked about it last year, we want more. There are guys coming in (this season) that have been on teams that have been locks for the playoffs. Veteran players, guys going into contract years. I like the dynamic of everyone’s situation and we’re going to rely on each other.”
Continued; I promised coach Lalonde that there might be 5% of the media that still believes the Wings can compete for a spot, but that might have been optimistic.
