DETROIT — When the Detroit Red Wings replaced coach Derek Lalonde with Todd McLellan on Dec. 26, they were eight points out of the second wild card into the Stanley Cup Playoffs from the Eastern Conference. They looked lifeless on the ice.
General manager Steve Yzerman pointed out they weren’t far off, though.
“You get a three-game winning streak,” he said Dec. 27, “you’re right back in the mix.”
Well, now they’re on a four-game winning streak and three points out of the second wild card. They will host one of the teams they’re chasing, the Ottawa Senators, at Little Caesars Arena on Tuesday (7 p.m. ET; FDSNDET, TSN5, RDS). They could be two points out by the end of the night.
“We’ve kind of worked ourselves back into a position where we’re playing meaningful games, but that just shows how tight it is,” forward Patrick Kane said. “Things can change overnight. Things can change day to day. That’s why every game’s so important from here on out.”
The question is whether this is a temporary hot streak sparked by the coaching change or the start of sustainable improvement.
“Are we prepared to build on it, are we prepared just to sit on it, or are we going to give it back?” McLellan said. “One of those three things is going to happen, and I’d like to think the build part will show up. But until we take the test, we don’t know.”
The Red Wings clearly needed a fresh start. The morning after the coaching change, Yzerman said you see the frustration on the players’ faces and their spirit was zapped. McLellan said he asked them to play harder, faster and smarter.
“The team can play harder,” McLellan said Dec. 27. “It just can.”
That night, they fell behind the Toronto Maple Leafs 5-0 at Little Caesars Arena, got booed off the ice after the second period and ended up losing 5-2. McLellan said they looked mechanical, trying to do the right thing at the expense of their instincts.
At his first full practice the next day, McLellan barked at the players to just play hockey, the game they had been playing all their lives. They took the message to heart, playing more freely.
McLellan also made other adjustments — tweaking the lineup, changing the penalty kill, encouraging a five-man forecheck — as the Red Wings defeated the Washington Capitals 4-2 on Dec. 29, the Pittsburgh Penguins 4-2 on Dec. 31, the Columbus Blue Jackets 5-4 on Thursday and the Winnipeg Jets 4-2 on Saturday.
“Something he preaches is, it’s never going to be perfect,” captain Dylan Larkin said. “I see a lot of people making a big deal out of it, but he wants us to play hockey, and he wants us to use our brains, use our hockey sense. I think right now you see the energy level.”
You literally could hear and see the Red Wings responding to a new voice at practice Monday, when McLellan shouted orders, blew his whistle and banged his stick while the players skated with pace.
“Obviously, you’ve got to give credit where credit’s due, and Todd’s brought in a lot of energy and made some changes in our game that have definitely helped us,” Kane said.
McLellan has coached 1,149 NHL games. He has been around enough long enough to know this is the honeymoon period and has called it that publicly. The marriage is what will matter in the long term.
“When you get home from the honeymoon, the real world kicks in, and it becomes work every day,” he said. “We’re probably in that phase now. We’re in the work phase where we have to trust that the map, or the path, we’re laying out for the players is the right one, and we have to trust that they’re willing to accept some of the guidance that we’re giving them.”
There is a long way to go.
McLellan said he sees a team with speed and skill that is inconsistent from game to game and within games. He’s still figuring out what its identity will be. After giving the players the rope to play freely, something they needed under the circumstances, he’s going to have to reign them in again and hold them accountable when they get sloppy.
Several teams are jostling in a tight wild-card race.
“There’s still so much hockey to be played,” Larkin said. “We’ve needed badly to get on a run, and we’ve got that. Now it’s just about keeping it going. No matter what happens, it’s about our game, how we’re playing and how we’re continuing to build that game.”
The next step comes Tuesday.
“Yeah, you can say what you want about it being the honeymoon period and whatnot, but I think we’ve made some changes to our game that will help us no matter what time frame we’re in with the coach,” Kane said. “And I think you’ve got to take advantage of it, right?
“These are exciting times, exciting changes to our game to help us play a little bit more aggressive and be on our toes, and I think everyone wants to play like that. I think we’re all getting more confident by the day.”
