Up To Red Wings To Write Their Own Story

For the first time in over a month, the Detroit Red Wings will be waking up Wednesday morning not as a playoff team.

Following Tuesday’s 2-1 home-ice loss to the Carolina Hurricanes, Detroit was dropping out of the second wild card position in the NHL’s Eastern Conference. The New York Rangers inched ahead of them based on regulation wins. The Red Wings had held down a playoff placing since Feb. 1.

Detroit has now lost three games in row, two of those setbacks coming at home. For the first time since Todd McLellan took over as coach in late December, the team is facing a crisis situation. Their mettle is being tested.

Staal steal ➡️ Staal score pic.twitter.com/bz57rWdNm0

— Carolina Hurricanes (@Canes) March 5, 2025

And perhaps most concerning of all, they are beginning to display signs of fatigue.

“I thought we had a tough time skating, so it was really hard for us to make plays,” McLellan said after Tuesday’s loss. “It looked like we were in mud. We couldn’t separate real well. And then we got hemmed in our zone and a lot of our time and our energy was spent defending.

“When we finally got the puck, we had no legs to go the other way.”

The most glaring example of this malady came during the second period. The defensive pairing of Simon Edvinsson and Albert Johansson found themselves trapped on the ice for a 4:25 shift. All but about one minute of that time was spent desperately pinned in their own end of the rink.

Red Wings Authors Of Own Destiny

We know what you’re thinking – probably because some of the Red Wings are thinking it, too.

From Feb. 29 through March 13 last season, Detroit lost seven games in a row. That skid greased the team’s slide out of the playoffs.

“Yeah, we’ve been here before, and there’s experience that we gained through that,” Detroit captain Dylan Larkin said.

The key, according to McLellan, is for his team to remember that the only ones in control of the narrative going forward is them.

Chatty put in WORK for that one 💪 pic.twitter.com/bNdm0L8Vkc

— Carolina Hurricanes (@Canes) March 5, 2025

“You write your own story, and we’re writing our own right now,” McLellan said. “And the prelude to what the story will be, you guys already have it in your head. You’re thinking about it, but we don’t have to. We don’t have to write it that way. We can change it. We have that in our power.

“When I quickly look around the room, there’s a lot of players that weren’t here for that. There’s some coaches that weren’t here for that. Every year is different. And you cannot drag baggage, good or bad, along with you.

“We have guys here that should have learned from last year, and we have new people that don’t even know what went on last year. So we’re our own entity, and we’re trying to write it that way.”

Time To End Slump Is Now

Thursday, a very beatable Utah club visits LCA. The Wings must win that game. There’s no two ways about it. The skid must end now.

“If you lose a couple games, then stuff isn’t going your way,” Detroit defenseman Moritz Seider said. “Now we just gotta find a way to dig ourselves out of that hole or get ourselves out of that hole.

“We just gotta get back to work and get out of that slump.”