The Detroit Red Wings’ coaching staff unsuccessfully challenged James van Riemsdyk’s 4-4 goal in last night’s 5-4 victory over the Columbus Blue Jackets, and the Free Press’s Helene St. James asked coach Todd McLellan what his thought process was going into the risky move:
“From the angle we saw, we thought that van Riemsdyk went into the blue paint on his own,” McLellan said. “His feet were in there. We didn’t feel Talbs could get across to make the play. Obviously Justin [Holl] had made some contact, but we thought [van Riemsdyk] entered on his own. It’s tough for everybody – it’s tough for coaches, it’s tough for the players, it’s tough the officials. These things often go 50-50, and we ended up on the wrong side.”
In addition to the coaches on the bench, the Wings have their goaltending coach watching from the press box and, a two-man video crew in the locker room.
“We give everybody an opportunity to chime in,” McLellan said. “We have to decide in a fraction of a second. That decision was mine. It wasn’t anybody else’s. That’s on the head coach. I made that decision and I was on the wrong end of it.”
The Wings’ penalty kill (69.2%) ranks second from the bottom in the league, but they got the job done Thursday. McLellan explained why he was willing to gamble, even given how late in the game it was.
“We’re asking our team to be aggressive,” he said. “We’re coming to play to win and there was a gamble aspect to our call. We also have confidence in our penalty killers. They came through for us. Obviously if they score, we’re talking about it in a completely different way. But I’d still own that and I’d still like our players to know we’re playing to win, and we’ll be aggressive when we need to be.”