McLellan Fires First Salvo at Red Wings: ‘Players Have to Give More’

The outcome determined, now it’s time for some harsh, brutal assessment of the 2024-25 Detroit Red Wings season.

Already, Detroit coach Todd McLellan is firing the first salvo. He believes his team was guilty of complacency.

“The players have to give more when they’re here, and we have to value every moment that we’re in it,” McLellan told reporters after practice on Sunday. “I don’t think we did that all the time.

“Sometimes we just take a game for granted, even a period for granted, and it comes back to bite you.”

The Detroit Red Wings are officially done. The one point from Montreal eliminates them.

The league's second-longest active postseason drought stretches to nine seasons.

Yzerplan pic.twitter.com/Osn2WPlh13

— Matt Larkin (@MLarkinHockey) April 13, 2025

McLellan went on to cite several examples of when the team was letting its collective guard down and allowing the moment to escape through their grasp.

Nearing the Four Nations Face-Off break, the Red Wings were situated in a playoff spot. They were within striking distance of third place in the Atlantic Division.

The final game before the break, they took a major pratfall. Detroit lost 6-4 at home to the Tampa Bay Lightning, giving up four first-period goals.

“I think we were in a good position going into the Four Nations until we played Tampa that game before,” McLellan said. “We talked about that . . . about the importance of that game, and it wasn’t that important to us that night.

“I think we were down 2-0 right off the bat and 4-0 in the first period. And when you look back at it, was that the turning point? I don’t know.

Plenty Of Red Wings Missteps Following Break

“We go into the break and come back out. We have some big games against Columbus. There were two Minnesota games, the Anaheim game, and then the two games against Columbus. We did not perform well here and lost. And we go into the outdoor game, performed fairly well and still lose. That stung a little bit and took it a little while to recover.”

There was plenty of discussion sbout the difficulty of Detroit’s finishing slate. The Red Wings dealt with the NHL’s toughest schedule down the stretch of the regular season. From McLellan’s point of view, what’s more telling about that gauntlet is how his players dealt with it. And for the most part, they didn’t deal with it very well.

The Detroit Red Wings will miss the playoffs for the 9th consecutive season 😳 pic.twitter.com/mv7heOn9TR

— Gino Hard (@GinoHard_) April 13, 2025

“Didn’t want to talk about the strength of schedule,” McLellan said. “Tried to pawn it off and push it off a lot. But I looked the other day that since we’ve been here, 65 or 66 percent of our games have been against playoff teams or teams that are going to make the playoffs, in my opinion.

“So you got to make hay when the schedule allows you to make hay. And we failed to do that as well. But it’s good for us to evaluate the players and the team against the best down the stretch. So that’ll be a good tool for us.”

Once again, the Red Wings didn’t have the stuff to make a playoff push. Now, it’s the job of McLellan and GM Steve Yzerman to determine which of the stuff on hand is worthing bringing back for next season as they try yet again to end the Detroit postseason drought.