from John Niyo of the Detroit News,

So there he was Tuesday, as his team returned to practice following Sunday’s ridiculous 11-2 loss at Pittsburgh, barking out instructions on the ice, diagramming defensive coverages on a whiteboard by the bench, and blowing the whistle more than once to have his players run a drill back to get it right.

The prospects have changed for this season, no doubt. But the process won’t, apparently.

“It’s not easy, and there’s a delicate balance to what we do when you’re in these spots,” Blashill said. “You have to be able to fight frustration. Certainly (Monday) we were all frustrated, embarrassed, disappointed — all those emotions. But you really gotta work toward solutions, otherwise you’re gonna head nowhere. You can’t let it be OK.”

It’s not OK, clearly, the way his team has played of late. And whatever underlying reasons there are for the Red Wings’ recent ice follies — losing 12 of their last 15 games (3-10-2), and all too routinely in alarming fashion — it’s more than fair to wonder if Blashill’s time is almost up in Detroit.

It should be, quite frankly. No NHL head coach has ever survived six consecutive losing seasons with one team to coach a seventh. But Red Wings general manager Steve Yzerman, who gave Blashill another contract extension last spring, is the one who gets to decide that. And he declined to weigh in on the coach’s future last week when he met with the media to talk about the Wings’ trade-deadline moves.

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