Detroit Hockey Now’s Bob Duff spoke with Olli Maatta, David Perron and coach Derek Lalonde regarding the Red Wings’ desire to play better and challenge for a playoff spot this upcoming season:
Based upon the fact that the team was 12 points in arrears of the final Eastern Conference postseason berth, simple math suggests the Red Wings will need to win at least six more games this season in order to be in the playoff discussion. That’s going to be easier said than done.
“There’s really nowhere to go in the division,” Lalonde said of the rugged Atlantic, where most prognostications are placing the Red Wings finishing seventh overall.
Why will this season be any different? The players point to the new faces as cause for believing the outcome can be positive.
“I think we’re going to defend better,” Maatta said. “We have lots of skill. I think playing with the puck, playing in the offensive zone. I think we can take control of games better.”
Will it be enough to get over the hump and into the Stanley Cup playoffs for the first time since 2016? There’s the rub. While there’s no doubt that the Red Wings are a better, deeper squad, the rough rapids they must navigate could pull them under yet again.
“Of course (the playoffs) it’s a goal,” Lalonde said. “It’s been a goal of hockey for the last 100 years. But playing the right way, and establishing an identity, creating a little bit of a process will give us a chance to talk about that. Exactly where we were last year through three-quarters of the season. We were right there because we were playing the right way. Now we have to get there again.”
Continued; 99% of the media folks are picking the Wings to fail and the “Yzerplan” to fail as well. Detroit has to prove them wrong, one way or another.
Thankfully, starting tonight, the talk will cease and the action begins.
