Wings hope kick in rear will lead to better starts
Playing tentatively rather than coming out with tempo
There’s less than four weeks left in the season, soon the remaining games can be counted using two hands — and the Detroit Red Wings can ill afford to keep showing up late.
They have made their pursuit of a playoff spot all the more challenging by letting opponents take control when the puck first drops, by playing tentatively rather than with tempo. It got to a point this week their coach said it looked like the Wings had quit, which is a damning indictment on a squad so close to being the one that ends the franchise’s sevenyear playoff drought.
“Maybe that’s all we needed, was one kick in the (rear),” Moritz Seider said. “Hopefully, we’re waking up now and continue to gain some momentum and hopefully finish here strong.”
The Wings were able to rally on Tuesday after giving up two goals to the Columbus Blue Jackets, but that’s an opponent near the bottom of the NHL standings. A road trip looms that features stops against the Nashville Predators, Washington Capitals, Carolina Hurricanes, Florida Panthers and Tampa Bay Lightning; everyone of those teams is battling for playoff positioning.
“Not only the opponents but this time of year, but every game tightens up,” Jeff Petry
said. “You have to work a little bit more for everything that you get. That goes for the defensive side of games, too. You have to really bear down and make sure you’re focused because every other team is tightening up and making it harder on us.
“I think we’ve been guilty at times of kind of feeling out what kind of game we are going to get, and in some of them, it’s too late at that point, once you realize it. When we look back at when we were playing well, we were controlling what we could control. We were strong on the puck and when the play was there, it was made. If not, we weren’t afraid to chip pucks, we weren’t afraid to get in on the forecheck. I think what we’re lacking a little bit is not managing the puck as well. We’re doing well coming from behind, but it has to come to a point where we bring that style and approach to the start of a game.”
It would be a monumental letdown for the organization if the Wings don’t play past April 16, their regular-season finale. They do still project to advance for what would be the first time since 2016, but it’s a tight battle, and if they miss by a point or two, there are no games that should haunt them all summer long more than the two performances against the Arizona Coyotes in mid-March. It was one thing to play poorly in Arizona on March 8, even though that came just hours after general manager Steve Yzerman gave the team a vote of confidence by not making any additions at the trade deadline. But to come home and start poorly and lose again one week later — that’s the kind of conduct that baffles.
“We’re trying to figure it out in here, too,” Patrick Kane said. “I think sometimes the group can tend to feel out games instead of being on our toes and take over like we have in some games. We just have to have that mentality, to come out and take over right away. We’ve talked about this urgency for the last two or three weeks, and it’s definitely something we have to figure out.”
Derek Lalonde has been upfront about the coaching staff sharing responsibility, saying that players, “are obviously not responding from video and our meetings with some of these starts. We’ll try to be a little bit different.
“It’s an interesting time of year. It’s so emotional right now, the highs and lows. Maybe we have to change the approach a little bit.”
Lalonde can give more minutes to those he sees consistently play with energy (he has named Lucas Raymond and David Perron in that category), but the Wings generally have been at their best when four lines have rolled.
Raymond said he didn’t think it’s a matter of the team lacking urgency, but in the same sentence admitted that, “we come out a little bit hesitant, a little bit feeling out the game, and I feel like that’s been an issue almost for the majority of the season, not just at the end here. For us, that’s a huge part. You want to start off right and be able to build from that.”
When they were banking 20 of 26 points in January, one difference was that Alex Lyon was making saves on the sort of plays (especially breakaways) that he and James Reimer have both been letting in this month. But it would be helpful for the goaltenders if the skaters adhered to the team-defense structure the coaching staff has emphasized since camp, and to play with energy from the get-go. There was 12.6 seconds left when they tied the game against Columbus, and that is a hard way to earn points.
“I think we come to the rink with the expectation to win,” Seider said. “We are fired up, but we just can’t translate it on the ice. We have a good atmosphere in the room before, now we just have to make sure we are really dialed in. Luckily we didn’t quit. I think it was a big step in the right direction, but if you look at the bigger picture, it was just a baby step.”