MLive’s Ansar Khan discusses the Red Wings’ hot streak under coach Todd McLellan from a “belief” perspective:
This team already has risen to the challenge many times under McLellan, with winning streaks of seven and six games and road wins against elite teams Winnipeg, Florida and Edmonton.
McLellan said everyone around the team has a sense of belief, from the front office to the coaches to the players.
“When you come in and try to create an environment and try to introduce new concepts for the players, they’re either going to accept them and make it work or poke holes in them and basically say it doesn’t work,” he told media after Sunday’s game. “All of our players have chosen to try and make it work and the longer it goes the more they believe.”
Alex DeBrincat, who scored two goals Sunday including the overtime tally, said players always believed they were better than what their record indicated (13-17-4 before Christmas).
“Needed a bit of a fresh start, kind of a restart,” DeBrincat told reporters. “It feels like a new season and we’re winning games when maybe we haven’t played our best and that’s what good teams do, and we got to keep that up.”
Patrick Kane, who returned to the lineup Sunday after missing five games with an upper-body injury, said: “That’s how you get yourself back in the picture. You string wins together and you win games that maybe you shouldn’t. Obviously, we’ve had great goaltending, some timely goals, a lot of our top players have been really good through this stretch.”
Continued (paywall)
