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Red Wings Celebrate Sunday Setback

Detroit happy to get point after squandering lead

Published

3 months ago

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Patrick Kane, Red Wings
Patrick Kane believes the Red Wings are going into too much of a defensive shell when leading.

So, six years into the rebuild, here’s where things apparently stand for the Detroit Red Wings. Losing is worthy of celebration.

Gaining a point is a point of delight.

“That’s a pretty darn good point,” Red Wings coach Derek Lalonde was saying late Sunday night. His team had just finished squandering a 2-1 third-period lead in losing 3-2 at home in overtime to the Edmonton Oilers.

This, folks, was evidently worthy of celebration.

“That’s a huge point,” Lalonde said. “Considering the circumstances, it’s a pretty good week.”

Okay then. Let’s recap this pretty good week. It began with a solid 5-3 home-ice win over the New Jersey Devils. Saturday, there was a 5-3 setback at Buffalo. Then Sunday’s OT loss.

Add it up and Detroit’s pretty good week saw the team go 1-1-1. The Wings were playing .500 hockey, as they are so far on the season at 4-4-1.

You know what .500 hockey gets you? A total of 82 points. You know what 82 points doesn’t get a team? A spot in the Stanley Cup playoffs.

Obviously, pretty good – at least the Red Wings version of pretty good – isn’t going to be good enough in the long run.

Some players seem accutely aware that the way they are currently playing is not going to get it done.

Red Wings Too Defensive Minded

Patrick Kane has done a fair bit of winning during his NHL career. His three Stanley Cups attest to that fact.

Kane doesn’t like one bit what he’s seeing from the Red Wings when they’re winning.

“We had a great first, nice,” was Kane’s opening assessment of Sunday’s game. “It’s good when we’re playing hungry like that, on top of them. Excited to play with the puck, not thinking about defending. Instead just taking it to them. And we gotta get that more in our game, especially when we have a lead.

“I mean, throughout this year we’ve seen it multiple times where we have a lead and we’re just kind of playing defense. It’s just tough to defend like that all the time. It wears on you. It’s tough on you energy wise.

“It’s so much easier to play offensively with the puck in their end, offensive possession. So we gotta get that a little bit more in our game.

“That’s just something we need to develop in our team.”

Until they do . . . and until they take the approach that all failure, even when it garners you the NHL’s loser point – is unacceptable, can this team really be taken seriously as a playoff contender?

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