Detroit Hockey Now’s Bob Duff ponders whether the Red Wings can sell their fan base “hope” this upcoming season given the tumult surrounding the team. Red Wings coach Todd McLellan told Duff that all the team can do is attempt to produce a better on-ice product:

“I don’t know if it’s going to be different than any other year,” Detroit coach Todd McLellan told reporters. “We’re trying our darndest to change it. We’ve adjusted some things systematically. We want our guys to play harder and heavier, and have brought a couple of players in to do that.”

He knows what they must do to foster change.

“We’re going to have to spend less time in our zone,” McLellan said. “So that’s where that structural thing comes through. We’re going to have to spend more time in o-zone.”

He understands implementing a system and making it work are entirely different scenarios.

“Will it be different than last year?” McLellan said. “I can’t read into the crystal ball, but we’re going to do everything we possibly can to make it better and to change. And that’s where we’re at right now. And we start playing, and we see what happens.”

For the players in the Detroit dressing room, perhaps they can use that lack of belief in them coming from the outside to ignite a fire inside their bellies and enable them to achieve a shockingly positive outcome.

“We’re just very worried about our own locker room, and we don’t really care about what other people think,” Detroit defenseman Moritz Seider said. “And if we see something, I think we just use it as motivation. I’ve said it plenty of times. It’s a great feeling, proving people wrong, and I think we have a great chance in this locker room to do so.”

Contnued; I am hopeful, but not optimistic.