Bob Wojnowski of the Detroit News on all the losing with the Detroit teams but I am just going to try to highlight the Wings.

We knew it’d be bad. We signed up for bad. But at some point, a pointed question: How long before it’s bad enough to do something about it?

The Red Wings, Tigers and Pistons have been in various stages of rebuilds for about four years....

If you happen to coach in Detroit right now, you can’t win. Also, you can’t lose. Because the Wings and Tigers are in full teardowns, Jeff Blashill and Ron Gardenhire get some slack, despite historically awful records....

The Wings have the worst record in the NHL, by far, and will have the best shot at the No. 1 pick. Blashill is 148-178-51 in five seasons, incredibly the third-longest-tenured coach in the ax-happy NHL. He’s on the thinnest ice, pun intended, although Steve Yzerman has strongly supported him. It’s not just that the Wings’ well-compensated veterans — Frans Nielsen, Jimmy Howard, Mike Green, Justin Abdelkader, etc. — have failed, it’s that the touted young players — Dylan Larkin, Anthony Mantha, Tyler Bertuzzi, Andreas Athanasiou — have either been hurt or stagnant. Gerard Gallant, recently fired by Las Vegas, could be the next guy in charge, whenever that is....

The lack of urgency to fire coaches here is not about management being lazy, detached or cheap (although we can revisit those charges). It’s about owners — Chris Ilitch, Tom Gores, Martha Ford — who have mapped out plans of patience and aren’t ready to blow their covers with showy firings....

Would Scotty Bowman or Mike Babcock win more games with these Wings, who have lots of injuries, no defensemen and no goaltending? Not before their heads exploded (literally!)....

’m not letting the coaches off the hook. (Yes you are!) (No I’m not!) I’m suggesting talent acquisition is a much larger issue than talent development....

That’s where Blashill, 46, has to show more, and you wonder if a few young players have stopped getting the message. It wouldn’t be a surprise, considering they’ve heard his voice since he coached some of them in Grand Rapids.

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