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The Detroit Red Wings wrap up their season series against the New York Islanders this evening (7 PM EST on Fanduel Sports Network Detroit/MSGN2/97.1 FM), having swept the first 2 games of the teams’ series via a 1-0 win on October 22nd and a 2-1 victory on Thursday…

Given the Wings’ performance in the 3rd period of Saturday’s loss to Boston, this is one of those games I’ve had circled on my calendar for a while as a “barometer game.” That’s doubly true given that the Wings look so very fragile right now, and rather desperately need a win to help turn around their listing ship.

This game also has Wild Card implications. The 8-10-and-2 Red Wings and their fan base have been focused upon the team’s standing in the Atlantic Division, but the 8-8-and-5 Islanders are definitely a team that the Wings may compete against for a Wild Card spot, should Detroit break its early-season funk.

Patrick Roy’s Islanders also play a really good speed game, they have strong goaltending, and his Isles play a trapping style that seems to stymie the Wings’ offense and flummox their defense, too, so it’s a bit of a “kryptonite game” whenever Detroit plays the Islanders.

I’m intrigued to see how the Wings perform in games against the Isles tonight and the Devils on Friday afternoon (3 PM EST start on Friday) to see where the Wings stand as far as battling against Eastern Conference competition is concerned.

According to the Islanders website’s Rachel Luscher, the Islanders happen to find themselves in a not-too-dissimilar spot to the Wings right now. Saturday’s win vs. St. Louis snapped a 0-2-and-1 stretch, and the Islanders are in the midst of a 3-game home stand, so they’re trying to make hay while the sun shines:

Continue reading Red Wings-Islanders morning skate Tweets and articles: Kane out with UBI; Lyon vs. Varlamov in goal

ESPN’s Greg Wyshynski posted a “NHL Head-Coach Hot Seat Index” this morning, and he believes that Red Wings coach Derek Lalonde and Blackhawks coach Luke Richardson’s “hot seats” are “burning up” at present:

The Red Wings have regressed in the standings after last season’s 91-point campaign. Their offensive output is way down, from 3.35 goals per game last season to 2.53 after 19 games this season. Their 1.52 goals per 60 minutes at 5-on-5 is 31st in the NHL. This isn’t about puck luck: Detroit’s 2.06 expected goals per 60 minutes is last in the league. They’re better in goals against per game season over season, but a lot of that credit should go to goalie Cam Talbot, who is making GM Steve Yzerman look smart.

But the biggest harbinger was the one that haunted Montgomery: Lalonde, in his third season with the Red Wings, does not have a contract beyond 2024-25.

The general speculation is that if the Red Wings don’t make the postseason, Lalonde surely pays for that with his job. But would Yzerman pull the plug in-season, in the hopes of getting Detroit back to the playoffs for the first time since 2016?

There also has been speculation that it might happen, and one rumor that made the rounds in NHL coaching circles this month was that Joel Quenneville might take over the Detroit bench.

“Two weeks ago, I heard Quenneville for Detroit,” a coaching source said.

Continued (paywall) with a few reasons as to why Quenneville, 66, might not want to join the Red Wings–and why the Red Wings might not want to hire him (see his $6 million salary with the Hawks).

In all honesty, I don’t see Quenneville coming to Detroit given that, as Wyshynski points out, he’s the kind of coach that you plug into a team that needs a reset as it attempts to win a Stanley Cup, not a team that is in the middle of a rebuild.

Stranger things have happened, but I don’t see the fit.

As news breaks that the St. Louis Blues have hired ousted Bruins coach Jim Montgomery…

The Detroit Red Wings lost the special teams battle and plain old ran out of gas in the 3rd period of their 2-1 loss to the Boston Bruins on Saturday night.

When you go 0-for-4 on the power play, give up a power play goal against, and are then out-shot 13-4 in the 3rd period, the stats back up the above paragraph’s two assertions pretty bloody well.

But if we are to talk about the very fragile team that is the now 9-10-and-3, which sits 6th in the Atlantic Division at the 20-game mark…

I know that the Wings got out-shot, out-shot-blocked, out-performed in the faceoff circle and had an ugly 26 giveaways (Simon Edvinsson had 6 of those giveaways), so we’re not talking about the Red Wings’ best effort here.

And I’m not here to be a Red Wings apologist.

Last night’s 3rd period was unacceptable, it sullied the team and coaching staff’s full-game performances, and that’s the bottom line.

But I did see signs of progress over the course of the entirety of the game. Let’s enumerate a couple of those positives:

Continue reading Building blocks

The Detroit Red Wings may have glimpsed their future as they eyed the 9-9-and-3 Boston Bruins on Saturday night. The Bruins fired coach Jim Montgomery on Monday, and are beginning to revise their roster under coach Joe Sacco.

As the Atlantic Division continues to pull away from the Red Wings, there’s definitely urgency for the 8-9-and-2 Red Wings to sort out their difficulties internally, lest they share the Bruins’ fate.

On Saturday night, the Red Wings played a really great 40 minutes of hockey, but they lost their “oomph” in the 3rd, and that was enough to drop a 2-1 decision to the Boston Bruins.

Detroit went 0-for-3 on the PP, which did not help, but Cam Talbot stopped 27 fine saves, Raymond got a goal and Larkin got his 300th assist, and the Wings should not have been out-shot 13-4 in the third period in which they had a power play and a lengthy stretch of 6-on-4 time, in which they hit two crossbars behind Jeremy Swayman.

But there is progress here, and the Islanders await on Monday.

Continue reading Red Wings-Bruins quick take: 40 good minutes won’t win you a game vs. the Bruins

Tony Wolak, Devin Little and I had to “go it alone” without our host, the eloquent Evan Sabourin, but Tony did yeoman’s work and hosted the show this week:

The Detroit Red Wings attempted to rebound from an 1-2-and-1 road trip and a three-game winless streak as they hosted the 7-7-and-5 New York Islanders on Thursday evening.

As the Red Wings kicked off a stretch of 6 games to be played over the course of 11 nights, and a stretch in which they’ll play every other night until December 9th, the Wings neared the “quarter pole” of their season at 7-9-and-2, rather desperately needing to sort themselves out in order to turn their season around.

On Thursday night, the Red Wings “won ugly,” but they won, rallying in the 3rd period from a 1-0 deficit to defeat the New York Islanders 2-1. Jonatan Berggren scored at 15:14 and Lucas Raymond scored at 19:08 to give the Red Wings the victory, with Alex Lyon stopping 22 shots and Detroit taking 31 of their own.

With Boston coming in on Saturday, and the Islanders likely to be steamed on Monday in Long Island, the Wings needed this one, bad, and while some of the details were not elegant, the game counts as a win.

Continue reading Red Wings-Islanders quick take: Late, ugly wins still count

I’ve been battling through a heavy dose of Amoxicillin over the last couple of days, so I’m not as plugged into the Red Wings’ blogosphere, Facebook, Twitter or talk radio conversations as I’d like to be…

But I know how the story has probably gone for the criticism of the 7-9-and-2 team. Detroit sports fans are wonderfully passionate and sometimes quite thoughtful, but they’re also particularly predictable.

As such, I’m guessing that fans have already sent Derek Lalonde to the guillotine, to be replaced by, in no particular order, Sergei Fedorov (not gonna happen), Gerard Gallant, Joel Quenneville, Jim Montgomery, and a cast of dozens.

Again, I’m of the mind that the Red Wings should be patient and deliberate here, utilizing the 5-of-the-next-6-games-at-home schedule as runway with which to truly assess the team by giving the players and coaching staff enough leeway with which to determine the real course of the ship.

I also believe that the concept that a coaching change is going to fix everything is something of an overreaction.

I’m not about to suggest that y’all don’t have a point here, but I didn’t think that this team was going to do anything less than be inconsistent over the course of the early part of this season…

And I worry about what might happen if the team simply lops off the head of its coaching staff without having a serious battle plan for whatever comes next. It’s not as if the team should simply fire everyone and promote Dan Watson to coach, and it’s certainly not realistic to assume that this team is going to shoot off the launch pad like a rocket simply due to a coaching change.

Continue reading Change for change’s sake will not save the Red Wings’ season

This past weekend, I discussed the Red Wings’ need to turn their metaphorical ship around lest the team struggle all the way into December, when major changes will be necessary.

After watching last night’s 5-4 overtime loss to San Jose, however, I believe that the Red Wings’ coaches and management are going to look at the Wings’ 1-2-and-1 road trip (and 0-2-and-1 California swing)…

And I think the team and its management are going to “move the goalposts,” but not alter the goal of turning the team around.

With the Red Wings facing 5 of their next 6 games at home heading into December 1st vs. Vancouver, it might make more sense to hold off on, say, firing the coaching staff or making a major change to the team’s player personnel until such a time as the team shows whether it’s able to straighten out its trajectory on its own.

I’m not suggesting that the goal of making the playoffs this season should change;

And I still believe that this team can do so as-is. I still believe that the team’s coaching staff can motivate the team to succeed.

That being said, if the Wings continue to bumble into the Atlantic Division’s basement, December 1st stands as a hard deadline for sorting out the team’s problems in terms of goals against, penalty-killing, shot attempts again and relative lack of secondary scoring.

If the Wings are still a mess come December, it won’t be time for GM SY to blow the team up and start over–that’s not how you manage a 10-year rebuild–nor will it be time for the GM-for-life to be fired, but it might be time for a coaching change and/or an injection of new, difference-making player personnel.

I have a feeling that the team’s management is going to move methodically here, and as such, even after the team’s 0-2-and-1 California swing, I believe that they’re going to be given a little more rope with which to either use to lasso themselves out of trouble, or to trip and fall their way into necessary change.

Now the management team might surprise us with some decisive change between now and Thursday’s home return vs. the Islanders, but I’m doubtful that coaching or player changes will take place between now and then. Instead, I believe that the team’s going to be given a little bit more time to solve its problems on its own.

Still, and again, if the team is struggling on December 1st, meaningful and substantial changes will be necessary, and the longer that the management group waits to make changes, the more substantive changes will need to be made.

The Detroit Red Wings faced an important “barometer game” against the San Jose Sharks on Monday night.

Having dropped to 7-9-and-1 and second-to-last in the Atlantic Division, the Wings hoped to predate upon a 5-10-and-4 San Jose Sharks team in order to snap a two-game road losing streak.

On Monday night, the Red Wings kept letting the Sharks tie the game, and it cost them. Dylan Larkin’s 1-0 goal was assuaged by William Eklund’s first, Marco Kasper’s 2-1 goal was assuaged by Eklund’s 2nd, Rasmussen’s was tied by Toffoli, Luke Kunin scored the go-ahead in the 3rd, and while Alex DeBrincat tied the game late to force overtime…

Macklin Celebrini scored an OT winner to push the Wings to 1-2-and-1–1-and-3, really–on their 4-game road trip.

Talbot was excellent despite giving up 5 goals on 34 shots against, but the Red Wings played as if they were out of gas in the 2nd, 3rd, and OT, being out-shot by a total of 22-10.

Continue reading Red Wings-Sharks quick take: AMTV

I didn’t usually worry about the Red Wings, and I’m not going to overreact here in my antibiotic haze.

Those who are writing that Steve Yzerman should be fired on the spot after Detroit’s 4-1 loss to Los Angeles, out that Derek Lalonde will be shot into the sun by Monday morning, well…

They’re either writing for clicks, or they’re overreacting, and we’re all aware of how regularly this fan base overreacts.

I will say this, however: I’m concerned. For the first time this season, I’m genuinely concerned about the Red Wings.

I’m not concerned about their player personnel per se, nor the coaching staff (quite yet, though it’s getting close), but I am very concerned about their body language when they lose as they lost on Saturday.

Continue reading Iceberg, dead ahead