Multiple Problems With The Wings

03/15/2024 at 1:55am EDT

from Kevin Allen of Detroit Hockey Now,

The Detroit Red Wings can’t seem to figure out how to play with the same confidence and effectiveness they showed in January. They have now lost seven games in a row and don’t seem any closer to figuring how to solve their issues.
The problem: it’s not one thing. It’s everything.
It’s the team’s defensive play, the inability to generate scoring, lack of jump, slow starts, leaky goaltending, untimely mistakes, loss of confidence, lack of resilience, Dylan Larkin’s absence and pressure forcing the players to press. This is a Detroit squad that has scored 12 goals in their seven losses.
“In your career you go through some things like this,” Detroit coach Derek Lalonde said. “It’s just trying to find some answers throughout the lineup. It’s reality. We have not handled our group very well with Dylan out. There’s no reason for that. He’s a special, special player. He’s our engine a lot of nights but we have very capable group, very capable lineup. I think it’s got to be a little more emphasis on those defensive mistakes.”

continued

Below watch Chiarot, Perron and Lalonde after the game. Plus Mickey Redmond on the adversity the Wings are facing.

Mickey’s Moments 3.14.24: In tonight's Mickey's Moments, we hear from the man himself on what the Red Wings must do to bolster their confidence amidst their most challenging adversity of the season.#LGRW pic.twitter.com/edoQkmOmm8
— Bally Sports Detroit (@BallySportsDET) March 15, 2024

from Bob Duff of Detroit Hockey Now,

A 4-1 home-ice loss to the Arizona Coyotes should be a tipping point for a team that has now lost seven games in a row, all in regulation.

Its unacceptable, Red Wings forward David Perron said.

More like inexcuasble.

Red Wings Are Coyotes Ugly

In the span of a week, Detroit lost twice to Arizona, the 24th-best team in the 32-team NHL. In those two games, the Red Wings were outscored 8-1.

The Coyotes are 4-16-2 over their past 22 games. Fifty percent of those victories came at the expense of a Detroit squad in a battle for an Eastern Conference wild card spot.

The New York Islanders remain percentage points ahead of the Red Wings for that eighth and final postseason placing. Beating the Isles 4-0 on Thursday, the Buffalo Sabres were moving to within three points of Detroit.

The Sabres and Red Wings battle on Saturday afternoon at LCA. Just three days ago, Buffalo was throttling Detroit 7-3. But if you were thinking things couldnt get much worse for the Wings, boy were you wrong.

Embarrassing Loss For Red Wings

Should you have been unlucky enough to witness Thursdays contest, you saw a dreadful exhibition of hockey. The Coyotes were desperately seeking a way to find a defeat. This is a team that struggles to complete a tape-to-tape pass of more than 10 feet. They commit enough turnovers to stock a bakerys inventory for many a day.

Yet as much as they sought to hand the game to the Red Wings, Detroit was unwilling to accept this charity.

The Red Wings are currently a team playing without composure, lacking fire and displaying an utter inability to either generate offense or make a reliable commitment to defense.

Paul

from Ted Kulfan of the Detroit News,

The losses are piling up, other teams are creeping closer in the standings, and the lack of any type of positive response brought on a chorus of boos late in the loss from the crowd that was left at Little Caesars Arena.

"Unacceptable," said David Perron of the loss. "They got the first goal, we battled back, but it's just tough as it gets right now in the room. We have to find a way to bounce back, get up, and put our pride on the line and be better."...

The Wings appeared to be pressing most of the night, almost expecting the next bad thing to happen or skating into a bad play or situation on the ice, trying to do too much.

"You saw some of that (pressing) on the power play and maybe a little bit on our five-on-five," Lalonde said. "We found ourselves in a game that not a whole lot was going on, very low chances against, the type of game we're going to have to be in. (But) the second and third goals (against) were self-inflicted."...

"We need to get this going in the right direction," defenseman Ben Chiarot said. "We have to be better defensively. You see the chances we give up, the ones that shouldn't happen especially this time of year when everything should be going in the same direction. It should be like a machine at this point and everyone knows where they should be and be there at the right time and we're not there yet.

"We need to get there in a hurry."

A lack of confidence is beginning to seep into the Wings' lineup as well.

"We get down one (goal) and we it gets deflating for the group," Chiarot said. "At the beginning of the year it was the same kind of thing, we'd give up the first up goal and get on our heels a little bit. But when we're playing well and going well it doesn't bother us. We know we're going to get the next goal (but) right now we've kind of lost that confidence."

Chet

these guys must just be addicted to april golf weather. its the only explanation i can formulate.

exor54

If another player or coach utters, "We have to be better....", I will puke

RWHockey13

So many issues and problems. Roster is not good. Where do you begin? Tear down the roster, start over again? I think so. Why our youth do not get a chance over Holl, Petry, Chiarot... is a mystery. Sure, not all of them are ready. However, Edvinsson has been ready. Do they need a tougher coach? I am not sure. Hopefully, Steve Yzerman let's a few UFA's walk and does not sign more retreads.

evileyeRWHockey13

The bigger problem is the guys who are actually under contract for next season. Copp, Holl, Petrys and Fabbri are going to be tough to unload. The UFAs Ghost, Kane, Sprong they actually might want to keep. At least they CAN let Perron walk.

The retread experiment on defense has failed. They must make room for Edvinsson to play significant time in the NHL next season. Hopefully Mazur can be ready. Fixing the rest is going to be a challenge as we wait for the defensive prospects to develop further.

RWHockey13evileye

I am very surprised by Steve Yzerman. Not sure what he is doing.

I am very surprised

Steeb

Hey, Paul, I hope your procedure was somewhat less awful than this losing streak. But at least you knew the procedure was coming, right?

I posted this elsewhere, but thought it might be relevant here.

1> LaLonde isn't going anywhere. We put up with two extra years of Blash so that Stevie could get his guy. He's not going to give him the axe this year or next.

2> This wasn't meant to be a playoff team, going in to the season. Postseason would have been nice, but wasn't really the goal. It was to establish a culture to bring the kids into over time. You can argue about the success of that culture building, but that, and playing meaningful games in March, were the idea. And fairly successful, in those two regards.

3> The organ-Y-zation decided, probably before the season started, that a long playoff run in GR would be better for the youngsters. It makes sense to me, because the big club wasn't going to make any noise in the playoffs anyway, and the plan is to build a contender, not a team that squeaks in and gets pounded by Florida in round 1. Yes, that is valuable learning experience, but a longer run in GR for the kids is better.

4> So, the 10,000 foot view is that this is a basically successful season. It just looks really bad close up right now.

5> We ALL know the patch isn't the cause of this losing streak. But it probably IS our last EVER chance to get rid of it, before we turn the NHL into even more of an ad server than it is. Athletes are an extremely superstitious bunch. Making the smallest change mid-season will throw them off sometimes. It'd be like telling them to tape their stick toe to heel, or put on the right skate first. Nobody's going to point to the tape-direction change as a "cause", but it doesn't take much to upset a players timing, and at this level, being a little off is a big deal.

This is where the NHL is headed, and if you don't think so, you're fooling yourself. https://tinyurl.com/bd9jb62n

NateASteeb

Pretty much all of this right here. The roster lacks real depth at C and G. Knew that going into the season. Seeing those results now. Saw the results back in December as well. Should not have been a surprise to anyone. This is very much still a rebuild

So point #4 I'm especially on board with. A low end bubble team is what I expected going into the season and that's about what we've got. Really they've exceeded my expectations a little, considering the strength of the division/conference. And if we're being honest, even at it's best this team is getting bounced in a first round matchup against FLA or CAR or BOS and probably NYR and TB. So as frustrating as it is at this moment, I'm quite happy with how its gone overall.

As for the patch, as much as I'd like to believe there's a chance to reverse this trend, I know it's not gonaa happen. Unless there's a coalition of fans willing to pay that ad fee just to keep the sweaters blank, the sponsorships are here to stay.