The Detroit News’s Ted Kulfan filed an off-day notebook which discusses the Red Wings’ struggles of late in terms of defensive play:
It’s on the defensive end that, possibly, bad habits from early in the season are beginning to resurface. McLellan, who took over Dec. 26 and the Wings immediately went 7-2-0 afterward, wants to stomp out those habits before they hurt the Wings again.
“We’re aware of that certainly, and it’s not unexpected,” McLellan said Sunday, after a sloppy first period led to the loss. “It’s hard to change habits. We’ve worked real hard on the mindset and we’ll need to keep doing that.”
What’s making it difficult for McLellan and his staff is the lack of practice time during this compact, busy schedule.
The Wings didn’t practice Monday, flying to the finale of this road trip Tuesday in Philadelphia (7 p.m., FSN/97.1). They won’t skate Wednesday either. With games basically every other day until early February, it’s going to be difficult to squeeze in full-tilt, quality practices.
“We haven’t had a lot of practice time because we’ve been on the road and playing nearly every other night, but that’s not going to change,” McLellan said. “Our learning will have to come from video and applying it in the game. We’ll keep on them and pushing them and we’re not going to accept slippage. It may occur but we’re not going to accept it.”
Turnovers or missed assignments were the cause for three first-period Dallas goals. The 3-0 deficit was too much for the Wings to overcome.
“What we gave up were some real egregious errors by individuals again, and the whole group pays the price for them,” McLellan said. “We’re a good team but we’re not a great one yet, and great ones can overcome stuff. Good ones struggle with it.”
