Lalonde fine with Vegas naysayers
If the Red Wings are going to continue to be in the hunt for the playoffs, it’ll likely be a difficult road.
There are several teams around them, closely bunched, so any sort of losing streak is going to be costly.
And there will be losses. Just ask the Vegas oddsmakers. They’ve been selecting the Wings as underdogs for quite a while lately.
“You just go the NHL schedule before games and they have the odds,” Lalonde said. “Vegas hates us. I hope they’ve lost a lot of money on us. Someone gave me a stat that we’ve won more games as a Vegas underdog over anyone in the league by a large margin.
“That’s fine. It says something about the group, there’s a quiet confidence in that room, confident from doing it right.”
There are numerous projections out there on the internet. Though the Wings are holding a four-point lead for the second and final wild-card spot in the Eastern Conference, there’s quite a few models that still project the Wings to have a less than 50% chance of reaching the postseason for the first time in eight years.
Many of Lalonde’s friends send those projections, too. He’d rather not see them, or any social media.
“You can’t operate like that,” Lalonde said. “This is going to be extremely difficult. The projections out there that people send me, we’re still a low 20% (to make the playoffs. Some of the teams chasing us are 67% projection of making it. I get all that stuff, today’s projections, and AI, whatever.
“But that’s why you shut it out and live in the moment. If we are going to stay in this battle and be fortunate enough to be there in the end, it’s going to be about what we do.”
Lalonde agreed it was a good thing he wasn’t on social media after losses last week in Edmonton and Vancouver, two contenders from the Western Conference. The Wings defeated the Canucks five days prior at Little Caesars Arena, then lost in Vancouver with a mediocre performance.
“That’s the reality,” Lalonde said. “The best team in the league, and just five days before we outchanced them, we out-shot them, played a pretty good game. (Then) the season was over for some (after the loss). But that’s part of being a passionate fan base.”
Ice chips
The Wings went through an intense practice Wednesday after returning from the West Coast late Monday night. Lalonde felt it was needed. “There’s a balance of where you still need reps, and we felt today was an important day to have a longer, harder practice,” Lalonde said. “You want to be smart too, because we have three games in four nights coming up and we’re coming back from the west coast. It’s a tough challenge, between that challenge to practice and being fresh. You have to trust sports science but today we felt we needed to work on some things and we did that.” … No further update on goaltender Ville Husso (lower body), who was hurt last week in Edmonton in his first game back after returning from a month-long injury. Lalonde said it remains “week-to-week,” but Husso should be able to return before the end of the regular season.