Detroit Hockey Now’s Max Smith discusses the Red Wings’ attempts to “move forward” despite Dylan Larkin’s trade request. Coach Todd McLellan suggests that the team has its hands full simply trying to build a winning machine:
Said McLellan, ‘We’re talking about winning the day. We’ve got to— we have to win today, and that was on the ice, that was in the locker room preparing, and then tomorrow we’ve got to win tomorrow, and then we’re going to start the season.’
Detroit has struggled to win consistently, especially late in the season in recent years, and the anticipation of those collapses seems to build itself into a self fulfilling prophecy.
‘I think you heard Horc talk [at yesterday’s press conference] about we’re moving forward,’ Said McLellan, ‘We are moving forward.’
What that means for a team that likely will have a different first line center by the end of the season is hard to say at the moment without a course set by a more permanent front office group.
At the very least, without a permanent single leader to set the direction of the team, that opens the door for the Red Wings to collectively create a new identity for themselves. Part of that, their coach hopes, will be getting harder to play against.
‘We have to break pucks out better, we need to be heavier on the forecheck. Our team has to harden up a little bit. It has to get harder in front of the net,’ Said McLellan, ‘And we deal with the pieces that we have, and we have to try and push them to become that.’
McLellan also made an intriguing remark about the Red Wings’ new leadership group of Lucas Raymond, Alex DeBrincat, Moritz Seider and Simon Edvinsson:
‘It’s time for some change. It’s time for Razor, DeBrincat, Mo, Simon, these guys to take more of it on. They’re the veterans now. They’re done being kids.’ Said McLellan.
