Month: October 2025

Morning news: On the Red Wings’ resiliency, ‘meltdown’ McLellan and bulletin board material

Updated 2x at 10:03 AM: The Detroit Red Wings’ 6-3 victory over the Toronto Maple Leafs included two late empty-net goals from Detroit, so the game’s result didn’t necessarily reflect the tight nature of last night’s win.

This morning, MLive’s Ansar Khan offers us his with-quotes recap…

Coach Todd McLellan and players believe this is the team they are – or least the team they can be – not the one that looked ill-prepared two nights earlier.

“We didn’t roll over and, you know, woe-is-us type attitude,” McLellan said. “We dug in a little bit more. That’s a really good sign for us. I just thought we played with more pop and more energy. We were connected. I think that team knows it can play that way. I believe they were all mad and really disappointed in what transpired the other night (5-1 loss Thursday). But now they got rewarded for fixing it and for doing the work, and we’ve got to bottle that type of game up and continue on with it.”

Despite trailing 2-0 at the first intermission, the Red Wings weren’t “shell-shocked” as Dylan Larkin put it, like they were when they were down 3-1 to the Canadiens after 20 minutes.

“It speaks volumes of the group with what we went through the past couple days … to bounce back and come out of the second up 3-2,” Patrick Kane said. “It’s two games into the season, but we proved we can turn the corner when we face that adversity.”

Kane also spoke honestly to Khan regarding the team’s mood when it was still down 2-0 in the 1st period:

Continue reading Morning news: On the Red Wings’ resiliency, ‘meltdown’ McLellan and bulletin board material

Tweet of note: Cam Talbot got the Hockey Night in Canada towel

Red Wings goaltender Cam Talbot earned his Hockey Night in Canada towel on Saturday evening:

Toronto’s Max Domi offers praise for Patrick Kane, role model

Sportsnet’s Luke Fox offers an interesting take on Patrick Kane’s playmaking ability from one Max Domi of the Toronto Maple Leafs:

Domi’s second-most-productive stretch of hockey arrived during his stint alongside Patrick Kane on the 2022-23 Blackhawks. Domi scored 18 goals in those 60 games, the same amount he has now scored in 156 as a Leaf.

Asked to name his favourite playmaker, Domi doesn’t hesitate to single out his American idol, who sniped and tacked on two primary assists Saturday.

“Kaner, for sure. He gets mad at me for saying that, because we’re good buddies, and we were linemates for a full season — which was a highlight of my career, absolutely. The way that he sees the play — and the whole ice, really — he can direct his linemates where to go. But he just doesn’t miss. It’s pretty amazing,” Domi says.

“That’s why I signed there, to be honest, kind of knowing what I was walking into (with Chicago’s rebuild). I learned a lot; I was a sponge. Patrick is one of the best players of all time. So, to have one of your childhood heroes playing next to you every single day, and a guy you can bounce questions off, a guy that can get mad at you once in a while for making a mistake here and there, that’s how you learn, right? So, I certainly enjoyed that, and I’m still talking to Kaner and keeping in touch.”

Continued

Red Wings-Maple Leafs wrap-up: under-estimated Wings force Toronto to self-destruct

The Detroit Red Wings rallied from a 2-0 deficit to defeat the Toronto Maple Leafs 6-3 on Saturday night at Little Caesars Arena.

The game kicked off a home-and-home series between the teams, who will play again in Toronto on Monday, which is Canadian Thanksgiving, at 2 PM EDT.

On Saturday night, the Red Wings rallied from a 2-0 1st period deficit thanks to goals from Marco Kasper, Lucas Raymond (goals 99 and 100), Patrick Kane, Simon Edvinsson and Andrew Copp (empty net), as well as a 20-save performance from Cam Talbot…

And Detroit was utterly relentless in attacking Anthony Stolarz over the course of 60 minutes of hockey, peppering the Leafs’ goalie with 35 shots and 67 shot attempts.

Detroit’s power play also went 1-for-4, and the Wings killed all 3 Maple Leafs power plays.

While the Red Wings celebrated a bounce-back win, the Maple Leafs, perhaps unsurprisingly, told the Hockey News’s David Alter that the scoreboard was indicative of Toronto’s on-ice performance, and not Detroit’s:

Continue reading Red Wings-Maple Leafs wrap-up: under-estimated Wings force Toronto to self-destruct

Red Wings-Maple Leafs Tweetcap: resilient Red Wings rally from 2-0 hole, defeat Toronto 6-3

The Detroit Red Wings looked to bounce back from an embarrassing opening-night loss as Detroit hosted the Toronto Maple Leafs, kicking off a home-and-home series between the teams.

On Saturday night, things did not start well for the Detroit Red Wings. Only 2:27 into the 1st period, Calle Jarnkrok jammed a Nicholas Roy pass into the net behind Cam Talbot, and at 12:29 of the 1st, Roy scored himself on a rush with Rielly and Nylander that had Seider and Chiarot hitting each other in confusion…

But Marco Kasper opened the scoring for Detroit 8:56 into the 2nd, Lucas Raymond scored goal #99 at 14:55, Patrick Kane scored a glorious marker at 18:10…

And while Max Domi made things sweaty and nervous for every Wings fan in LCA at 238 with a 3-3 marker, Raymond would score goal #100 on the power play at 6:45, and Simon Edvinsson and Andrew Copp would score empty-netters to make a 4-3 win look like a rout.

Cam Talbot stopped 20 of 23 shots; Detroit fired 33 on Anthony Stolarz, who stopped 29.

Detroit went 1-for-4 on the PP and killed 2 Toronto power plays.

It was Detroit’s first win of the young season, and the teams will reprise their roles in Toronto at 2 PM EDT on Monday, October 13th.

PREGAME: The Red Wings hit the ice at Little Caesars Arena just before 6:30 PM:

Continue reading Red Wings-Maple Leafs Tweetcap: resilient Red Wings rally from 2-0 hole, defeat Toronto 6-3

Press release: Monday’s Red Wings-Maple Leafs ‘Canadian Thanksgiving’ game will start at 2 PM EDT

Per the Detroit Red Wings:

MONDAY’S RED WINGS – MAPLE LEAFS START TIME CHANGED TO 2 P.M. ET

NEW YORK (Oct. 10, 2025) – The National Hockey League announced today the start time to Monday’s Detroit Red Wings-Toronto Maple Leafs matchup (Game #43), originally scheduled for 4 p.m. ET at Scotiabank Arena in Toronto, will now begin at 2 p.m. ET (Prime, TVAS in Canada, FDSNDET in U.S.).

The change is to accommodate Game Two of the American League Championship Series being held at Rogers Centre in Toronto, on Monday.

Following the Maple Leafs game, fans will be able to stay in their seats at Scotiabank Arena to catch all of the ALCS action as the Sportsnet broadcast is aired on the videoboard in-arena. 

It’s about ‘game management’

Here’s an interesting bit of commentary from coach Red Wings Todd McLellan, via MLive’s Ansar Khan, regarding the mistakes that the Wings made last night vs. Montreal–and how the team might fix them:

McLellan cited poor game management, which plagued the team last season and something he stressed coming into training camp. McLellan said his team allowed at least a dozen odd-man rushes. Two directly resulted in goals.

“We took them through game-management moments,” McLellan said. “I think when you’re in it sometimes and you’re playing, you come off, you’re tired, you don’t even realize how often it’s happening and why it’s occurring. You just hear coaches on the bench (yelling) ‘Cover this, do that!’ But when you get to be fresh, sit in a theater room, watch it, it can be pretty humbling when all of a sudden, you’re on the screen, you’re clearly part of this and you know exactly, in that moment, what you did and why you did it and you’re thinking, ‘Man, I wish I wouldn’t have.’ Those are the moments we have to clean up.”

Said Copp: “The mistakes we made were just big mistakes. I think that was the issue in the last preseason game as well (6-5 overtime win over Toronto). So, a lot of stuff to clean up, but those mistakes should be relatively easy to clean up. Can’t ruin our confidence just because of one game. So had a good meeting today, had a practice to hopefully flush those thoughts and then come to the rink tomorrow, excited, ready to go.”

Continued (paywall)

Aggressive vs. careless

The Detroit News’s Ted Kulfan filed a practice notebook article in which he finds that Red Wings coach Todd McLellan was particularly displeased by his second look at the Wings’ 5-1 loss to Montreal:

“A lot (of evidence), too much evidence,” said McLellan Friday, after viewing the video and meeting with his team. “They’re all guilty.”

The head-scratching mental mistakes, which often led to outnumbered rushes by the Canadiens early in the game, were too much for the Wings to overcome. They never gave themselves a chance and disappointed a loud crowd at Little Caesars Arena to usher in the Wings’ 100th season.

There was plenty to go over Friday and correct heading into Saturday’s home game against Toronto (7 p.m./FDSN/97.1).

“It’s much easier when you need to fix one player or one line, but this was team-wide,” McLellan said. “We dealt with it (Friday at practice) and we talked about managing the game much better.”

Andrew Copp didn’t disagree with his coach:

The Wings have talked about being more aggressive, playing relentlessly, and that possibly came back to haunt them against Montreal. Aggressive is good, but there needs to be a bit more alertness.

“They’re such big mistakes that led to two-on-ones and three-on-ones,” Copp said. “We’ve preached being aggressive and we ended up careless. We have to be smart with it, but that’s not going to change the way we want to operate, but maybe be a little bit smarter.”

Continued (paywall)