Todd McLellan doesn't skirt the truth when he's not pleased with his team.
When he referred to several players in the Red Wings' lineup as "just jerseys" following a 5-2 loss to the Hurricanes in late February, "that just means, like, sometimes you're just taking up space," McLellan explained Monday. "You're good enough to play in the league, you're good enough to play on the team, but we're not getting enough out of you."
And after an ugly loss to the Flyers last Saturday in which the Red Wings fell behind 4-0 on home ice, McLellan criticized some players for coming to compete "but not think at all," and others for doing neither. He reiterated Monday as the Wings prepare for a crucial three game roadtrip starting Tuesday night against the Penguins that "the brain and the legs and the will all have to go together."
"If you're only using one and not the other, it doesn't work. How do we fix it? Well, we addressed some of it in the video today, which is what we do even when we're playing really well, and then we put it into play and practice. That's all fine and dandy. But we're going into April, and video and practice should just be polishing things up and away you go. You shouldn't be trying to extract competitiveness or heaviness out of the players at this time, but we are. We're capable of providing it, and we'll get a chance to do that starting tomorrow night."
20 games ago, the Red Wings were tied atop the East with the Hurricanes. But they have seven wins since and have fallen two points out of the playoffs with nine games to go. They are one of four teams separated by two points in the fight for the final wild card spot in the East.
"It’s still in our hands," said McLellan. "There’s still 18 points that are left. But sometimes we play like we’re waiting for teams to do us favors, and that’s the issue that we have. We’re caught in between. Realistically, it’s in our hands. We play and we win our share of games, I think it’ll be fine. We play teams that are right there with us."
The Wings trail the Penguins by four points entering play Tuesday night. They're two points behind the Blue Jackets, who currently hold the final wild card spot and visit Detroit for a huge game next week, and they're tied with the Flyers, a team they play twice more down the stretch.
But the Red Wings have to show more of a backbone. When Philly scored first last Saturday night, the deficit ballooned to 4-0 before it was too late. Staying even-keeled within a game is "an area that I don’t think we’ve done a god job of," said McLellan, who rose the same concerns about the team last season.
The Red Wings are in danger of crumbling at this juncture of the season for the fourth year in a row. This has been a slower spiral, while the collapses in seasons past were outright free-falls: a six-game skid in 2025, a seven-game skid in 2024 and a six-game skid in 2026. The Wings are 7-10-3 over the aforementioned stretch.
"Our resilience is still there. You saw it the other night, we come back. But if we don’t start well and something bad happens, we give away too many minutes," McLellan said. "It takes us too long to recover. We take too much water on, I’ve used that term before. Like, it wasn’t good, let’s move on. And it seems to stay with us longer.
"So, just getting over it is real important, or staying with it. We’ll put some good shifts together and then we’ll shoot ourselves in the foot with some bad penalties, timing things, execution. It all has to come together."
Before it's too late for good.
