Hard times and hockey blues

I’ve been having a very difficult time of late. My chronic anxiety attacks have yielded a pretty deep depression, and while I’ve been working with my psychiatrist, psychologist, and my own damn self to get through things…

I feel like I’m just starting to see some distant sunshine about to peek over the horizon, but the last two weeks’ worth of not blogging, and the last month-plus, have been particularly difficult.

Being a caregiver on top of it all doesn’t help the healing process, either, but that’s the life I’ve chosen for myself.

While all of this personal shit has been going on, of course the Red Wings have dropped 9 of their past 11 games, and while I’ve tried to at least show up on Twitter/X when I’m able to watch a game, I’ve been more a grief counselor than Red Wings partisan once games end.

The Red Wings are struggling, too, and it feels like they’re in a deep depression, too. It’s just…It’s hard to watch.

There’s a lot of blame going around. Blaming the coach. Blaming the GM. Blaming the captain. A lot of scapegoating, which isn’t necessarily productive. But there’s clearly a lot of blame to go around right now, and, to me, the Wings look out of gas, mentally, physically and emotionally.

I know that the “McLellan bump” was wonderful, but the Four Nations Face-Off break seemed to take the wind out of Detroit’s sails, and when they tried to build a winning streak in late February, the pair of losses to Columbus, Stadium Series included broke the Wings’ backs and hearts.

In my opinion, losing that Stadium Series game the way that it unfolded was a real collapse on the biggest stage possible, and I’m not quite sure why, but as the team’s navigated injuries and goal-scoring funks from top offensive contributors…

I just don’t see a “bottom six” that’s able to supplement the Wings’ top-heavy forward corps, or a bottom-pair defense that can go on the ice and not be a liability. To me, the back half of the roster has let the Wings down, and when you add in the goaltending issues (Petr Mrazek wasn’t brought in because the GM or coaching staff have a whole lot of faith in Cam Talbot or Alex Lyon right now), inability to score 5-on-5, the PK, and especially the inability to string 60-minute efforts together…

Add it all up, and you’ve got a salvage job that even the Toddfather couldn’t pull off over the second half of the season, because the personnel is too deeply flawed to perform up to the coach’s expectations.

Where does the team go from here?

They’re limited to 4 post-trade-deadline call-ups, save those injury-induced “roster emergencies,” so the Wings can’t simply flood the team with Grand Rapids Griffins prospects–and if you’ve been paying attention, the Griffins haven’t been playing elegantly, either, so they have their own set of problems.

With the Wings’ playoff chances at somewhere around 5% and falling, I’m not willing to give up on the team, but I’m also willing to admit that the climb to a playoff spot is basically a vertical climb.

The Wings don’t have to “win out” and get help in terms of other teams defeating their playoff opponents, but it’s bloody close to that.

So what happens going forward?

We know they’re not going to fire the coach. Underwhelming performances since the Four Nations break included, coach Todd McLellan has done an admirable job of trying to turn the ship around.

We know that, despite the 8-year playoff drought, that as long as Mrs. Ilitch and Chris Ilitch run the team, Steve Yzerman is sticking around as the GM.

I also believe that Dylan Larkin and the Wings’ leadership core aren’t suckers. Larkin, Raymond, Seider, DeBrincat, Kane, they show up every night, and they try to drag the franchise’s sinking ship out of the water. I have no complaints there.

Given that the Wings probably aren’t going to make the playoffs, and we’ll use “probably” as a moderate term for an almost-completely-certain outcome…

Some of the players will head to the World Championship in Sweden and Denmark, and then, the Wings’ management will build toward the draft, and I certainly hope that the team revises its pro scouting team given the number of hits-vs-misses record in free agency.

Hopefully, the player personnel solution involves a combination of imports and organic growth from within, because building through free agency is hit-or-miss, because the Wings may very well need to trade or buy out Tarasenko, Holl, etc., and because it’s just time to accelerate the timelines for the Wings’ next generation.

I can’t say that I’m expecting my dream scenario of the Wings adding a Brendan Shanahan-like power forward and a shut-down defenseman through free agency, and then letting “the kids” run with it. I don’t think that next year’s roster is going to be all that markedly better than this one, given the GM’s tendencies and the management group’s mandate (or lack thereof) from ownership.

But I do believe that a full year under coach McLellan, along with some roster revisions, some subtractions, and some meaningful additions–be they free agents, prospects, or a combination of both–might yield a better spring a year from now.

It’s really easy to point fingers in hindsight, and it’s really easy to bag on the team and the players and the management and even the new coach right now. There is plenty of blame to go around, too.

But spitballing, shooting the shit and trying to play fantasy hockey GM aren’t going to yield profound and dramatic personnel changes. For better or worse, some 6 years into Steve Yzerman’s rebuild, the GM and management team don’t run the organization that way, and that’s just the truth.

So I’ll give you the advice I did on Twitter last night: I’m gonna tell you that the fan-team marriage is an open one. You’re totally allowed to give up hope and stop watching the team from games 70 to 82 if watching the team under-perform doesn’t make you happy. It’s okay to step off the bandwagon for a bit and take a break.

At this point, the fan-team marriage isn’t a great one anyway, and it certainly feels like the team isn’t holding up its end of the bargain.

And you can certainly grieve the season at this point. That’s completely understandable, too.

But those of us who are ride-or-die-hard partisans and fans will weather the storms and see the season out, offer what is nothing less than due criticism and critiques of the roster, coaching staff and management, and even the ownership.

We’ll probably get on other teams’ bandwagons for the playoffs, we’ll peek in on those early-day World Championship games, and from there…

We’ll hope for the best, and demand better.

That’s about all we can do at this point, because we know that, at this point, the team doesn’t seem to give a rat’s butt about public opinion.

In that category, we have to vote with our feet, and not buy tickets if we’re unhappy with the product.

And we have to keep the valid criticism and critiques and occasional rants up, because the team may not care about public opinion, but they can still read.

As far as I’m concerned, I don’t want to put a timeline on things. I’ll be back behind my laptop and on the blog when I’m able to sit up and function again.

I’m still having a lot of trouble with the functioning part of the equation, and I’m definitely still clinically depressed, regardless of how the local NHL team is doing.

But I do want to come back yet again from my chronic health issues, and I do want to continue talking about the Red Wings, come hockey hell or high water–and we’ve got both going on right now.

I’ve got tough times personally, my hockey team is going through an incredibly difficult patch, and I can do something about my health, but all I can do about my team is write and share and hope.

I’ll talk to you soon.