Catching up after I became a bit ill on Monday afternoon:
- MLive’s Ansar Khan posted an article discussing the Red Wings’ situation as having improved under coach Todd McLellan:
“For sure, things change quickly,” goaltender Alex Lyon said. “It’s like you’re so far down one week and then the next week it feels like you’re on top of the world. But we got to be careful of getting too high. We learned that lesson last year. It’s not about the standings; it’s not about the playoffs. It’s about playing the right way and focusing on the process and having good practices. But certainly, it’s a bit more fun to be playing when you’re feeling like this.”
The Red Wings play their next four at home before their schedule gets much more difficult. According to tankathon.com, the Red Wings currently have the second-toughest remaining schedule (their opponents have a .571 points percentage). And they play 23 of their final 39 on the road.
That’s all outside noise to players. They’re focused on the day-to-day task of winning and playing games that matter in the standings is important.
“I’ve played on teams where you’re kind of out of the playoffs with 20 games left or it doesn’t look very bright and it’s not fun to play those games,” Patrick Kane said. “We kind of worked ourselves back into a position where we’re playing these meaningful games. But that just shows how tight it is. I mean, things can change overnight. That’s why every game’s so important from here.”
2. The Free Press’s Helene St. James also discussed the Wings’ belief that their “honeymoon phase” under coach Todd McLellan is over…
When they woke up Monday morning, the Wings were within three points of a wild-card spot – but also with five teams to leapfrog.
“You’re so far down one week and then the next week it feels like you’re on top of the world,” Lyon said Monday. “We have to be careful of getting too high. We learned that lesson last year. It’s not about the standings, it’s not about the playoffs, it’s just about playing the right way and focusing on the process and having good practices. Certainly it’s a bit more fun to be playing when you’re feeling like this, so enjoy it while you got it, but also take it with a grain of salt at the same time.”
Some of his teammates appreciate the whole salt shaker, though. Patrick Kane talked about the atmosphere that has infused the locker room since Todd McLellan was named coach on Dec. 26 and the Wings began to right themselves, most recently taking down the NHL-leading Jets in Winnipeg over the weekend.
“If you told us a month ago we’d be [three] points out right now, any one of us would have taken it,” Kane said. “We’re not even halfway through the year and we’re in the playoff picture and it’s on us now to keep it going. It feels good to kind of be back in the picture a little bit.
“The changes we’ve made give us a lot of confidence. You can say what you want about it being a honeymoon period, but I think we’ve made some changes to our game that will help us no matter what time frame we’re in with the coach. And I think you have to take advantage of it. These are exciting times, exciting changes to our game to help us play a little more aggressive and be on our toes and everyone wants to play like that. I think we’re all getting more confident by the day.”
3. The Detroit News’s Ted Kulfan discussed the Wings’ improved stead as well…
McLellan, for his part, is still attempting to not get lost in the spacious Wings’ facilities.
“I don’t even know where the standings are, I don’t even know what is up on the walls,” said McLellan, who wants to keep the focus narrower. “I’m worried about what they do when they put their equipment on, and I’ve asked them to do that. Don’t look at the standings or talk about four-game win streaks or four-game losing streaks or that we haven’t been to the playoffs for eight years; it doesn’t matter for half of the players in there.
“It does matter because they represent the organization, but those aren’t their sins. It’s somebody else who performed and it hasn’t been good enough. We’re living for now.”
The Wings and Senators have developed a testy, physical division rivalry the past several years. To have implications in the standings only adds fuel to what is usually a hotly contested game.
But what McLellan will be looking for more than anything is how the Wings react after what was such a successful week, winning the four consecutive games capped by a victory Saturday in NHL-leading Winnipeg.
“The test will be against them (Ottawa), but more importantly, the test will be how do we respond, not to some adversity but feel-good time now,” McLellan said. “Are we prepared to build on it or just to sit on it or are we going to give it back? One of those things will happen. I’d like to think the build part will show but until we take the test, we don’t know.”
4. Detroit Hockey Now’s Bob Duff talked about the Wings getting to work ahead of their match-up with Ottawa tonight…
“I think a marriage is when you get home from the honeymoon and the real work kicks in,” McLellan said. “It becomes work every day. We’re in the work phase where we have to trust the map or the path we’re laying out for the players is the right one. We have to trust that they’re willing to accept some of the guidance we’re giving them.”
…
When things go south for Detroit, Ottawa is frequently the culprit. Last season, then-Senators forward Mathieu Joseph would knock Red Wings captain Dylan Larkin unconscious with a sucker punch during a game at LCA. Minus their captain, the Wings lost that game 5-1. It was part of a stretch that saw Detroit go 2-9.
The season prior, Detroit was rolling into the Canadian capital for back-to-back games on a 9-2 roll. There was talk of playoffs in Hockeytown. Following 6-2 and 6-1 losses to Ottawa on successive nights, Red Wings GM Steve Yzerman was instead soon engaging in a NHL trade deadline fire sale.
It’s episodes like this that emphasize to Red Wings goalie Alex Lyon that it’s just as dangerous to go on an emotional high as it is to wallow in the turmoil of a humbling low.
“Good lesson and a good reminder,” Lyon said. “You’re so far down one week and then the next week it’s like it feels like you’re on top of the world. But we gotta be careful as well, of getting too high. We learned that lesson last year. It’s not about the standings, it’s not about the playoffs. It’s just about playing the right way and focusing on the process.”
5. The Athletic’s Max Bultman wondered how long the “coaching change bump” might last for the Wings…
“I think of marriages, when you get home from the honeymoon and the real world kicks in, and it becomes work every day,” McLellan said. “We’re probably in that phase now. We’re in the work phase, where we have to trust that path we’re laying out for the players is the right one, and we have to trust that they’re willing to accept some of the guidance we’re giving them. We’re counting on them playing faster, harder and smarter, and accountability, I think, comes into play a little bit now. Catching them when they get a little bit sloppy or they start to slip.”
You’ll notice that he used the word “when” and not “if.” Because at some point, the Red Wings will start to slip again. The season’s too long for them not to.
Consider, for a moment, two other prominent NHL coaching changes this season.
The Boston Bruins fired Jim Montgomery on Nov. 19, when they were 8-9-3. After the switch to Joe Sacco, they ripped off seven wins in their next nine games and worked their way up to 20-14-4. But they’ve since lost four straight, and their grip on a playoff spot has become tepid once again.
Meanwhile, the Blues were 9-12-1 on Nov. 24 when they fired Drew Bannister to hire Montgomery and went 5-1-1 in their next seven. In just two weeks, they were back above .500 at 14-13-2. In the time since, though, they’ve alternated losing skids and winning streaks to tread water.
Like any adrenaline rush, the surge that follows a coaching change doesn’t last forever. And that’s why I thought McLellan made a particularly self-aware point after the Red Wings’ practice Monday, ahead of Tuesday’s game against the Ottawa Senators.
6. Ditto for the Hockey News’s Sam Stockton…
Vladimir Tarasenko offered a similar message, pointing to newfound energy following the change but also a need for further growth. “The feeling in the locker room changed,” he told The Hockey News. “We’ve started playing more aggressive in the games. There’s some things we need to adjust, but overall, trying to play…an aggressive style of play, always pursue the puck, play better in the D zone. We’ve played well lately, but there’s a lot of room for improvement.”
When asked about the identity of his team and the “faster, harder, smarter” mantra he has used since arriving in Detroit, McLellan re-emphasized that his team remains in the process of self-discovery.
“The short term sell to them is ‘faster, harder, smarter,’ but within the structure and play free and all the catch phrases I’ve maybe used, what is our true identity? What will be when we’re done?” he asked, rhetorically. “I think for me, I still need more time to answer that fairly. I believe there’s pace in our game when we’re playing properly. I think there’s a skill factor that exists in our game. I think that we are a little bit, even within games, we’re up-and-down, a little bit roller coaster–like. We’re high, and we’re low, so we’re a little inconsistent with play, so we’d like to become a consistent team. But that’s not our true identity. I was telling ya some of our characteristics, and I’d like to re-address that question a little later on when I know the group a bit better. For as much as what we want to dictate what the identity is, and we’ll try, they’ll probably dictate it with how they play and the parts of the game they really grab.”
That makes for an interesting balance between short-term results and long-term overhaul. Clearly, the early days of McLellan’s tenure have brought desirable short-term results, and with that success comes new obstacles.
7. DetroitRedWings.com’s Jonathan Mills filed an off-day notebook about the Wings’ 4-game home stand…
“We just have to continue to play like we’ve been playing,” goalie Cam Talbot said after Monday morning’s practice at Little Caesars Arena’s BELFOR Training Center. “We’ve really turned things around here by winning four in a row. We have to keep this good feeling going by establishing home ice again. Making this building hard to come in and play will be huge for us to climb up the standings, so these next four are going to be huge.”
Of the Red Wings’ first 39 games this season, 21 have been played at Little Caesars Arena, in which they’ve posted a 9-10-2 record. Before sweeping its most recent two-game road trip, Detroit was also trending in the right direction on home ice by winning two straight contests.
Talbot said there’s a real boost of positive energy the players get from Hockeytown faithful.
“You could sense the momentum during the first period of the Washington game [on Dec. 29],” Talbot said. “We scored one [goal], then two and [the fans] start getting loud. We score three, they get really loud. We get four, and the roof blows off the place. That’s the momentum we have to continue to ride. The more we can get our fans engaged like that and have them behind us, it’s going to make this a tough building to play in for other teams.”
8. And NHL.com’s Nicholas J. Cotsonika discussed the Wings’ confidence boost:
The question is whether this is a temporary hot streak sparked by the coaching change or the start of sustainable improvement.
“Are we prepared to build on it, are we prepared just to sit on it, or are we going to give it back?” McLellan said. “One of those three things is going to happen, and I’d like to think the build part will show up. But until we take the test, we don’t know.”
The Red Wings clearly needed a fresh start. The morning after the coaching change, Yzerman said you see the frustration on the players’ faces and their spirit was zapped. McLellan said he asked them to play harder, faster and smarter.
“The team can play harder,” McLellan said Dec. 27. “It just can.”
That night, they fell behind the Toronto Maple Leafs 5-0 at Little Caesars Arena, got booed off the ice after the second period and ended up losing 5-2. McLellan said they looked mechanical, trying to do the right thing at the expense of their instincts.
At his first full practice the next day, McLellan barked at the players to just play hockey, the game they had been playing all their lives. They took the message to heart, playing more freely.
McLellan also made other adjustments — tweaking the lineup, changing the penalty kill, encouraging a five-man forecheck — as the Red Wings defeated the Washington Capitals 4-2 on Dec. 29, the Pittsburgh Penguins 4-2 on Dec. 31, the Columbus Blue Jackets 5-4 on Thursday and the Winnipeg Jets 4-2 on Saturday.
“Something he preaches is, it’s never going to be perfect,” captain Dylan Larkin said. “I see a lot of people making a big deal out of it, but he wants us to play hockey, and he wants us to use our brains, use our hockey sense. I think right now you see the energy level.”
