Red Wings defenseman Moritz Seider penned a blog entry for NHL.com/de, and he shared his take on the Red Wings’ coaching change and the Wings’ first two games under Todd McLellan:
Seider’s Blog: We didn’t expect a coaching change
Detroit’s German defenseman writes exclusively about his turbulent Christmas days and his surprising personality
Moritz Seider, the German defenseman of the Detroit Red Wings, will share his views of things for this season with fans in an exclusive monthly blog on NHL.com/de.
In the December issue: new momentum needed with new coach
At Christmas I was in a new situation, because I was alone with my girlfriend for the first time in a while. We drove up north to Lake Michigan and found a nice little hotel in Bay Harbour. We comfortably spent three days off there. We had also thought about a trip to New York before, but we were happy in the end that we didn’t choose the hustle and bustle there. We were right on the lake, and everything was snowy and we had a small fireplace in the room. It was super relaxing, we could let ourselves relax a little away from hockey and recharge our batteries.
We brought our presents with us and opened them as we traditionally do on the 24th, and not the 25th as is customary here in the USA. That’s how our matching Christmas moods were up. On Christmas Eve we went to eat and I even ate duck while my girlfriend had fish. In the USA, turkey is on the menu. It was very tasty, but unfortunately I missed dumplings, which I definitely missed here a lot. But I’ll make up for it in the summer, when my grannies are allowed to cook for me again. At home, there was always very traditional food at Christmas. On the 24th mostly Viener Schnitzel or fish with potato salad, a soup that we cooked together and even hot stone with butter. Raclette, on the 25th, or grandma would cook a duck with homemade dumplings and red cabbage, and on the 26th, I’d go to see my other Oma, and she’d cook Kassler pork with potatoes and sauerkraut.
This year, on the 26th of December the news of the coaching change hit us, which we all met with surprise. I only heard about it from social media myself, and then we phoned captain Dylan Larkin relatively quickly. Our previous coach, Derek Lalonde, had called him. We were all a little stunned because we didn’t see it coming. We had tried everything before Christmas, but nothing was bearing any fruit. I have to admit that, however, a bit of my jump on the ice, explosiveness and will were missing. The management saw that. That’s why they came through. Nevertheless, a coaching change during the regular season is a strange situation that I haven’t experienced before.
Suddenly, everything was new and exciting. I was even a bit excited when I drove back to Little Caesars Arena for the morning skate on the 27th. It was already cool that the other coaches were in the locker room who now had the scepter in their hands, so to speak. But I think that the last few days were very, very positive. As hard as it might sound, we may have needed this wake-up call to somehow tear up the season. It demands a great deal from us, but it’s exactly what we need now. Now we need to see what we can implement in terms of his philosophies, and as quickly as possible.
The first game on Friday was difficult, of course, because we’d seen Todd McLellan for the first time that morning. There was little time for one-on-one conversations, and there was only one team meeting to get to know each other. So there were no system changes, and the game philosophy was the same. This will change in the next few weeks, to adapt and implement this step by step into our game.
It was still bitter that we were down to the Toronto Maple Leafs 5-0 after 40 minutes of play. We had a lot of energy and didn’t play a bad game. It was stupid goals against. The positive message was that we didn’t give up, and scored two goals in the last period. That was also Todd’s biggest message, to never give up and always fight.
In the next game against the Washington Capitals on Sunday, we played a very dominant first period and took a 4-1 lead, which we would then defend well over time. We took a lot of shots on goal and had our speed going. We must now build on this and continue to register points in order to gradually reduce the backlog and come back into the playoff picture.
But you won’t see us writing ourselves off in the battle for the Stanley Cup playoffs. The standings image is still very tight, and with some victories in a row, we can climb quickly. We simply have to find more consistency, and then everything’s possible. The good thing for us is that many teams in our conference are currently having problems. We may have lost our connection, but we’re not out of the picture yet. That’s our greatest happiness. But we must no longer rest, and must attack fully from now on.
