The Free Press’s Helene St. James peels back the curtain a bit to discuss the Red Wings’ tense Friday practice:
The Detroit Red Wings held an up-tempo practice and had a meeting to recalibrate as they seek to move forward from their opening night dud. That they performed so poorly after three weeks of preparation disappointed across the board, led coach Todd McLellan to seek out select players with a question.
“I actually asked a couple, maybe three or four players, Are we tired of this yet?” McLellan said on Friday, Oct. 10. “And they were longtime Red Wings, they didn’t come from other organizations. Just when is enough enough to play sloppy like that? I wasn’t blaming those players, I wasn’t saying, Hey, it’s your fault. But it has to have an impact on those guys, they got to be sitting in there going, OK, enough already. If those four start or five start and make a difference, then the rest will follow.”
McLellan didn’t name the players, but the only ones that fit the parameters are Dylan Larkin, Michael Rasmussen, Moritz Seider and Lucas Raymond.
Larkin and Seider both gave honest assessments of the 5-1 loss to the Montreal Canadiens the previous night, calling the Wings’ performance chaotic and disappointing. The focus now shifts to the Toronto Maple Leafs, who come to Detroit on Saturday (7 p.m., FanDuel Sports Network Detroit) and host the Wings on Monday.
“We had a meeting today to address some of the mistakes that were made,” Andrew Copp said. “The mistakes we made were just big mistakes. I think that was the issue and I think that was kind of the issue in the last preseason game as well. So a lot of stuff to clean up but those mistakes should be relatively easy to clean up. It’s game one. It can’t ruin our confidence just because of one game.”
Continued; coach McLellan also added this regarding the Wings’ mistake-prone loss to Montreal:
“It was [fixable], but also, I’ve been through this so many times where you leave and you go, Wow, we really played well and we got it, or you’re driving home and you’re going, I haven’t seen that team in 3½ weeks.” In my mind, it was a carryover from the last exhibition game. So it’s alarming – or, I don’t know if it’s alarming, it’s disappointing. But if we can learn lessons and respond from them – great. If we can’t learn the lesson, then it doesn’t matter what we do.”
