Assigning blame when we don’t have all the answers (yet)

I’ve continued to battle significant depression and anxiety while attempting to at least show up on Twitter over the past half-dozen games. I suppose that, given the Red Wings’ loss to Montreal on Tuesday, we’re looking at the last 5 games of the team’s 2024-2025 season here.

Another playoff-less spring means another postmortem examination, and, ultimately, another autopsy conducted upon the Red Wings’ personnel, coaching staff and management.

I’ve found that, on social media, the mainstream media, the blogosphere, sports talk radio and the podcast universe, there’s a significant desire to want to find a single person to blame for the mess–be it Steve Yzerman, Dylan Larkin, coach Derek Lalonde, etc. etc.

I believe that it’s just unlikely that one person is at fault here.

There’s more than enough blame to go around between the Red Wings’ players, coaches and management.

As the regular season concludes and we listen to the post-season media availabilities, we may receive some further clues as to what the locker-room dynamic might have been, we may find out how well coach Todd McLellan felt he and his coaching staff felt that they did in attempting to salvage the Red Wings’ season from about its halfway point, and we should glean some clues as to what Steve Yzerman and the management team are considering going forward.

And we should address the elephant in the room here:

Red Wings GM Steve Yzerman is not going to lose his job. He is not on the “hot seat” for the team’s under-performance, though there is clearly pressure upon him to deliver a playoff-worthy product next season after being passed by the Senators and Canadiens in the rebuilding process.

As long as Mrs. Ilitch and Chris Ilitch are around, Steve Yzerman is the GM for as long as he wants to be the GM, and he’s going to continue to build the team via his deliberate, cautious means.

I guess that’s where we should start, too, because I believe that the team’s personnel needs a revamp going forward, starting at forward.

With the salary cap going up from $88 to $95.5 million, the Red Wings rather badly need a Brendan Shanahan-style power forward with some grit and bite, even if he’s on the wrong side of 30…

The Wings obviously need to revamp their defense and it wouldn’t hurt to add an offensively-inclined defenseman after the Erik Gustafsson experiment failed…

The team needs to sort out its goaltending situation, because while Cam Talbot and Petr Mrazek can get the job done, Sebastian Cossa isn’t getting any younger as he toils in Grand Rapids…

And, most importantly, I believe that the Wings really need to invest in depth that goes beyond its “top six” and “top four” defensive pairings.

The drop-off between Detroit’s “top six” forward group and “top four” defenseman is stark and downright scary.

The support players just don’t get the job done, and as a Twitter follower pointed out, while it’s great that Elmer Soderblom and Michael Rasmussen can play roles on the first and second lines, it’s not ideal for them to do so.

The team needs third and fourth lines which can be trustworthy when they jump over the boards, the team needs a reliable third defensive pair, and depth beyond the third defensive pair, and it needs to both tap into the youth movement in Grand Rapids, and to aggressively pursue some free agents who can add some size and snarl to the group.

Now that’s a long list of “wants,” and the team’s not going to be able to fill all of its needs, regardless of whether it’s through free agency or via trades, because we’ve got a risk-averse management group–and a still less-than-an-“A-Market” free agency destination–but if the Wings’ management can help the coaching staff build a faster, stronger, and younger roster, that achievement would mark a successful offseason.

As much as anything, the Wings’ exit meetings with players and with the coaching staff’s “wish list” are going to help determine the team’s offseason improvement plans, too, so we’ll see what transpires over the course of mid-April, and after some of the Wings’ players take part in the World Championship (whether we like it or not)…

But it’s still early, and we don’t have all of the information necessary to make sweeping conclusions as to what went wrong with this team this season–aside from the obvious conclusions that coach Lalonde didn’t work out, and that the team didn’t have the talent, spirit, or jam necessary to stave off a March nosedive…

And, in the interim, I respect the multitude of opinions regarding “what to do next,” but I believe that it’s too early to suggest that one course of action is the only way by which the team can build a roster, coaching staff and management group that can deliver playoff hockey at Little Caesars Arena next April.

It’s time for a gut check and a bit of a roster facelift for sure, with some players saying “goodbye” via free agent exits or buyouts (hello Justin Holl and Vladimir Tarasenko), and other players joining the team via free agency and/or some smart trades…

But this year’s Red Wings team took a step back, and making up for the set of setbacks which doomed its playoff chances will take time, patience, and savvy moves.

In my heart of hearts, I’d love to see some revisions to the pro scouting staff, too, given the Wings’ difficult record adding impactful free agents…

But that’s a “wish list” move, and it may be unlikely.

Long story long, however, I find it to be exceedingly dangerous to suggest that we can already have THE answer as to what ails the team, and THE way forward already mapped out.

We don’t know which players were playing through injuries, we don’t know which players want “out,” we don’t know whether coach McLellan is going to revise the coaching staff…

And while we can all guess pretty well that Steve Yzerman, Kris Draper, Nicklas Lidstrom, Shawn Horcoff and the rest of the management team will push forward deliberately and somewhat cautiously, we’re not going to know how aggressive they’ll be in terms of adding free agents, making trades and/or incorporating some of the team’s youth from Grand Rapids and beyond until mid-summer, if not next fall.

The renovation of the Red Wings’ organization is a “long game,” and if somebody tells you that they’ve got all the answers as to how the team should move forward, they are at best making guesses at this point.

It sucks like nobody’s business to watch this year’s team take steps back under coach Lalonde, and not take enough steps forward under coach McLellan, but I do believe that there is a blueprint for success embedded in a combination of certain players from the current roster and parts of the team’s young core of prospects in Grand Rapids…

And if the team can sprinkle in the right free agent signings to give coach McLellan the roster he wants, and be patient enough to accept that some of its younger players might make mistakes while being integrated into the NHL team, I fully believe that we’ll be talking about very different mid-April plans a season from now…

But that’s my best educated guess as to what the team needs and how the team should move forward. I don’t know for certain where its current players stand, what coach McLellan learned about his team over his half-season behind the bench, or what GMSY thinks as the Wings’ “GM for life” contemplates the team’s progress (or the lack thereof) over the course of this year’s campaign.

There are questioned left to be answered, information yet to be gleaned, and five more games’ worth of work for the team’s players to make their cases to continue their employment in Detroit.

There will be more than enough time to truly assess blame and responsibility for missing the playoffs over the next couple of months.

Utilizing a “Jump to Conclusions” mat just isn’t a useful option for the fan base right now (or the sports talk radio and podcast personalities who are trying to “poke the bear” that is the battered Red Wings’ fan base for ratings’ sake right now).

I’m not saying that if you think you’ve already got all the answers, that you’re nuts or something. I’m simply saying that it’s simply time to start the postmortem now, with a more definitive autopsy to be conducted after the season ends…

And until we can find out what the players, coach and GM have to say, making definitive conclusions that aren’t broad brushstrokes is…

A little early in terms of the game of assigning blame.

As such, sometimes the braver option is not to suggest that one has all the answers; sometimes, it’s important to say that we don’t know everything yet, and until the picture becomes clearer…

There is nothing cowardly or shameful in offering an “I don’t know” or “I’m not completely sure yet” in terms of determining necessary outcomes.

And we’re just not at the point where I’m certain that we have all the information necessary with which to make definitive conclusions as to what happened to the Red Wings this season, though we can certainly make some broad assessments.

So calm down a bit, grieve this season and this team that didn’t meet expectations as you need to do, and take a deep breath before explaining why you’re the smartest person in the room as to how to fix what’s ailing the Detroit Red Wings. There will be time for that, and that time isn’t yet here.

We simply don’t have a fuller picture of what the team’s players, coach and general manager believe went wrong over the course of the 2024-2025 season, and until we find out more information from those sources, there’s more than enough blame to be spread around for sure, but it’s a little early to be making definitive conclusions as to the “how’s” and “why’s” underlying this season’s below-expectations results.

Anyway, I hope that you’re doing okay as we grieve the 2024-2025 season, and I promise that I’ll be back to the blog on a regular basis as soon as humanly possible. I’m working with my therapist and my psychiatrist to deal with my depression and anxiety issues, and we’re making progress, though there are some days that are still pretty rough.

Thank you for your readership, your time, and your patience.