RED WINGS BEATDOWN – CAN DETROIT BOUNCE BACK? – Winged Wheel Podcast – Nov. 30th, 2025

RED WINGS BEATDOWN – CAN DETROIT BOUNCE BACK? – Winged Wheel Podcast – Nov. 30th, 2025

Welcome to the Wing Wheel Podcast, the number one source for news, analysis, and discussion on the Detroit Red Wings, the NHL, and all things hockey. Here are your hosts, Ryan Hannah, Brad Krisco, and Evan Lopsinger. the Lions on Thanksgiving, Michigan against Ohio State and the Red Wings losing three times. I can’t believe there was a point this year where when the Red Wings were going well and the Pistons were off to an insanely hot start and I know the Tigers season ended in in a pretty disappointing way, but it was still kind of like, okay, they did really well last season and the Lions hadn’t, you know, completely collapsed. Oh, and then the the saving grace for the Lions was supposed to come out of retirement then. Oh, nope. Grade three tear in his hamstring. Just kidding. I was at any point optimistic about Detroit sports and Michigan sports this year. How? How? Best thing that happened this week was the gravy boat. Yeah, that’s not even particularly close either. No. Somehow the grade three tear in the hamstring was the worst part. It’s the hope that gets you. It really is. And I didn’t think that was a way where you could be let down. Like I didn’t think the the hockey gods or the football gods did that kind of stuff. Like that’s a fresh new hell. Almost literally. That’s what those in the industry call a rugpull. It’s to the point now where you’re almost like, “Oh, yay. One point against Boston in the shootout,” which is objectively a good thing. They were rewarded with a point for having, you know, a late push. But it doesn’t feel any better. All right, that time of year. It’s November 30th, but may as well be December 1st right now with the way things are going. Welcome to the Winged Wheel Podcast, folks. Here to talk to you about all things Detroit Red Wings hockey, the world of the NHL, and lots more. I’m one of your hosts, Ryan Hannah. I’m Brad Krisco. And I’m Evan. This episode of the Wing Wheel podcast is brought to you by Greenlight Lending. If you currently own a home and need to save on the monthly payment, or if you’re considering buying a home and don’t know where to start, reach out to fellow listener and friend of the podcast, Nick with Greenlight Lending. They offer no closing cost options and a range of unique products to help you in any situation. NMLS 267-6683, an equal housing opportunity lender licensed in Michigan and Virginia. Give Nick a call at 586 321-1188. On this episode of the Winged Wheel Podcast, we’re going to be covering the two Red Wings games that have happened, mostly bad. the, you know, low highs and the low lows from those games and the takeaways from them moving forward. Talking about Larkin’s comments and more on what’s ailing this team moving through December and onwards. We’re going to be getting into notes on the Red Wings prospects and farm system, an update as to where Detroit and the rest of the NHL sits in the standings, NHL news, and more before we jump into overtime. Very quickly, if you want to support the Wing Wheel Podcast and help us do what we do, patreon.com/wingodcast. You get access to benefits like our bonus overtime episodes which record right after these main ones. We let loose. We have fun. You get thoughts with Evan. You get the bloopers. I think the last show had like two hysterical moments that we threw in there. All of that, lots more. You get access to our Patreon exclusive Discord. And you’re automatically entered into all of our giveaways with the opportunity to enter a giveaway for two tickets to every Detroit Red Wings home game going directly to our Patreon supporters. So, patreon.com/wingelpodcast for all of that and lots more. We’re going to start with the Tampa Bay game, but I have to lead off just very quickly by saying Mo Cider getting the right directly to the button on his chin and dropping was and I feel terrible for Mo in that moment. But that kind of just sums up how things feel for the Red Wings right now. Yeah. No, cuz someone actually showed a bit of passion there. So, we’re not quite on the nose for Red Wings fans. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That was a tough watch. The moment I saw Oh, you know what? We’ll get into that. All right. The Tampa Bay Lightning came into town Friday at 100 p.m. Matinea game at the LCA and a repeat of the game before, a 6-3 loss that they didn’t have to lose that way. you put up three against Andre Vaselvki, that’s tough to do. It’s usually a pretty good sign about your chances. I think at one point in the game when Tampa Bay had, you know, four goals and Max said like it’s going to be tough. It’s a tough ask to score five against Vasileleski and he wasn’t wrong. Detroit falls 6-3 and that game in my mind was it didn’t have to be that far out of reach against Tampa Bay. It’s It’s kind of been I said after the game like unfortunately the previous episode everything still stands like nothing is out of date now even though they played the game since then. Well, we’re actually just reposting the same episode right now. We spliced in new names and I kind of spoiled a bit but nobody would have seen it. The Red Wings lost 632 Tampa Bay. The goalending was okay but not great. The special teams weren’t special. It’s the same episode over and over again at this point. And it was good that they at least had a little bit of life offensively, but too many mistakes. And again, are there any of those goals that I can directly look at John Gibson and go, how could you let that in? No, they weren’t that level of bad. Yeah, but that’s like John Gibson’s like that’s like how I got through university. Yeah. Same. Yeah. He sits at the front of the class like everyone like thinks, you know, he’s paying attention. It’s like, hey, I’m just trying to get by. He’s the goal equivalent of C’s get degrees. Yes. But cuz like even the Tampa first kind of feels a little D to get degrees. Yeah. But I mean, we’re talking about his whole academic average right now, right? Not individual classes. Yeah. We’re talking about his first year grades keeping up his overall degree grades. So, he still gets the honors label at the end. Exactly. But he’s in his fifth year right now. And he’s he took that intro law class as a bird course and it’s not going well for him. God bless my uh my music and pop culture elective I took in the summer. God bless that course. But the first Tampa goal is probably the perfect example of this. It was the radish point shot where there was kind of a moving screen. I think Nick Paul timed that pretty well when he was cruising by. Understandable that that goes in, but man, it would be nice to not let that one squeeze through. Like it feels like every goal John Gibson lets in is one of those. It’s like, I get it. You were screened. It’s a tough save, but he never gets them. They all go in. I mean, he did have the one in the third period and that was immediately ruined by a turnover, but I digress. So, it’s the same thing. The defense, okay, too many brain farts. Goalending didn’t get a key save. The offense was okay that game, but I my biggest fear right now isn’t how bad this streak could get. isn’t, you know, X player underperforming or Y player underperforming. I’m starting to get the real fear of this just might be who they are, which is so much worse. Stop spoiling every bit from this episode, Brad, if you could. I know, but it’s it’s the vibe right now. When you see good play in such like streaks and flashes, it makes me feel like those are in fact just flashes in the pan and they just unlock something for a moment. It’s not they’re not ascending to the level they should be playing at. It’s like they just found a moment which is not good if you’re hoping for the playoffs. Yeah. I mean, yeah, technically, yeah, like you can’t be anything other than consistent if you want to be a true playoff contender. You’re totally right. Maybe they are consistent. They’re consistently inconsistent. We know that we’re never going to know what’s coming any given night. All right. December 31st after that game, we make the determination on what this team is because I’m not going to sit here for another three months and be like, well, if the bottom six forward group does this, it’s like at some point they just they are what they are. I think I can’t December is always like the black hole of of doom. So, if like this is now they’re going to come out like 500 or something like that and just be still floating around, but some point we got to just make the decision on what this team is. Winnipeg Jets at home December 31st, New Year’s Eve. That’s not good. That’s not good. Very bad. Hell might not be back by then, but it’s they’ll get to 500 this month, but you know that this losing streak is going to get to like eight games and then they’re going to rip off five in a row and we’re going to be even more confused than when we started. So Detroit actually opened scoring that game, believe it or not. JT Conference scores really important goal because he hadn’t scored in a while despite the effort. Really good work by Michael Rasmson to get him that puck. And then as Brad mentioned, the radish goal Gonalves scored a goal that was just, you know, I joked about, you know, cider getting dropped in the fight being the epitome of the Red Wings fans. The epitome of the Red Wings right now is JBD missing a a skipping bouncing puck, which happens. It’s not great, but it happens. And then Joe Hansen goes to pick up the puck is not strong on a stick. Gets like a dad schooling his kid like Pavle Datsuk and Trevor Thompson playing keep away lifts his stick, steals a puck, and goes in and scores on Gibson. And you’re just like, if Todd Mlullen has any shape left to his teeth by the end of the season, he hasn’t just gritted them into like perfectly flat opposing top and bottom teeth, I would be blown away. And then Yanni Gourd scores to make it 3-1. Michael Rasmusen cleans up a play that he started with Confer as well. Confer, I believe, hit the post and and Rasmuson cleaned it up off the line again after really good work down low. loving Rasmmanson’s work down low of late. You’re like, “Okay, you’re within one.” Yanni Gourd scores again to make it 4-2. Dylan Larkin scores from Raymond and Edmonson. Nice play. So, it’s 4-3. Detroit’s within one again. And it’s not out of reach at this point. John Gibson makes a huge save. We’ve been railing on John Gibson all year pretty much. Like, he’s not making the big saves. You just got the big save out of him. Are you going to turn it around and capitalize? Dear listener, not only did they not, Detroit’s two best defenseman combined for a circus level Benny Hill theme song cartoon turnover. Cider coughs it up in front of the net and Jake Gensel makes it 5-3. Brandon Hegel scores on the empty net to make it 6-3. And Detroit loses 6-3. Once again, like this team, everyone is gripping their stick too tight. Everyone is overthinking everything. Everyone is in a rut. It doesn’t seem like anyone is in any kind of flow state or playing to their level right now. It’s just that was actually No, Michael Rasm say don’t you mismatch the good name of Michael Rasm. Michael Redwing has turned it around. Michael Rasmmanson and Ben Sherro. Yeah. Who have been at the butt end of so many Red Wings jokes over the past few years are the guys who right now are are at least going out there and executing to some kind of level. So that’s Detroit losing 6-3. Executing is not even the right word. They give a [ __ ] No, it’s obviously No, no. I want to get I want to get into that later. I want to save it. Okay. All right. After the Boston game because Larkin had some comments after the Tampa Bay game which I think are important. So you get into the Boston game and that that game for what half of it, a little bit more than half was nothing happened. Nothing happened. Detroit it was like lifeless. I mean Jeremy Swayman was having a phenomenal game and that was evident pretty early on. But like was he because wasn’t there a point like a good chunk into the second period the shots were like 84 or something like that? Yes. like quite literally the most uneventful game of hockey since the last time you two went to watch the Bruins and the Winks. Yeah. Oh my god. Well, they did improve on their total shots from the first period to the second period. They went from four shots in the first to five shots in the second, which is god awful. But in the third, they picked it up. Yep. Let’s go back to the first period, though. Cider in his own corner, Castle finishing a check. And then Casik being a tough guy and a fighter does what he’s out there to do which is he’s trying to get a, you know, jackpot trade. Take himself off the ice for 5 minutes and take Mo Sider off the ice for 5 minutes. And if he’s lucky, he gets to rough up a Redwing star in the process. And unfortunately, it was very painful to watch. That’s exactly what he did. He threw a couple gloved punches at Cider. Cider, you know, shoved back and engaged with him. Castlick’s glove punches went to Cider’s face. Cider was still like he Cider It was very It was like a a flash of a moment like it happened really fast. I’m not saying Cider like followed him around and asked for the fight, but Cider engaged with it and gloves dropped and Castle’s a fighter and Cider is not and Cider got worked and he ended up taking that shot to the chin. Castic dropped him. Cider did return to the game. He missed I think a couple shifts at the start but he did return to the game. thankfully, but that was a tough watch. And honestly, like I think there was a lot of strong reactions from Red Wings fans for good reasons. And I think a little bit was just passion. But knowing that was Castlick, I am Cider shouldn’t have taken that fight, but I also don’t think Cider should have had to have taken that fight. The moment anyone saw that was Castlick, it should have been every other Redwing on the ice getting into that scrum. And if you take the extra penalty, you take the extra penalty. You can’t let your star players get dummyed by the other team’s UFC fighters. Like, it’s just not a good way to live. If you don’t have those tough guys, you’re you’re not going to conjure them up in the middle of the game. They don’t, right? So, you can’t you all you can do is have numbers. You can’t let that fight happen, man. You cannot. You got to let your fighter Simon Edmonson take on their fighter. I I feel for Mo on that one. I’m not blaming him. Like I I think it all happened so fast. So I get why maybe he thought he could have got away from that one without the fight. I think the glove punch the face from Castlic was it is that’s just what that’s what guys like him are out there to do and that’s what’s going to happen and the team has to know that. I I don’t know man. Maybe I’m being too nitpicky. Maybe it just happened too far behind the play. But that should have been every single hand in there. There’s one big asterisk that I don’t have the answer to that will define how I should feel about this and it’s the part you just mentioned in passing. It happened behind the play. I would love to see a camera angle from directly behind the glass where they were to see if any Redwing heads were turned in that direction because it’s understandable to think that the play was moving the other way. They might have thought this didn’t turn into anything. I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt because you can’t defend something that you are unaware is ongoing. But if there was any Redwing on the ice that had their head turned around and saw what was going on and didn’t immediately jump in there, shame. Because yeah, you cannot let one of the worst hockey players in the league but very effective goon do that to one of the best hockey players in the league. Like Castlick is willing to do whatever it takes to get these guys. He was doing it all game too and so was Jano. Yeah. Like again, I will never advocate for the Red Wings to go out and trade for a Ryan Reeves and dress guys like Mark Castle who can’t play hockey. They’re objectively bad at the game of hockey at the NHL level, but they do this stuff effectively. But at the same time, the Rings need someone who can do this stuff effectively. Ryan Reeves has more goals than Andrew Cop. Boy, that’s Do I still have the knives on the couch? Ben Shrot, love him to death. He’s been the one guy that seems to be stepping up lately. And every single one of these jerseys in the studio is getting changed to a bench jersey. I We’ve seen Michael Rasmusen fight. So, as much as I want to advocate for him doing it, he probably had even less of a chance than Mo Cider. Yes. But I there’s no answers for this on this roster right now. That’s the problem. I don’t look at this roster and go that’s the guy who needs to start pounding people. And at the same time, I don’t want them to go out and trade for Ryan Reeves. So, I understand this is not an easy solution, but they have to find dudes that can do this to put a stop to this because if there were four Red Wings looking at what was happening to Moadder and none of them stepped in, they need to sit a couple shifts and re-evaluate what it means to be a teammate, what it’s like to be in the NHL, what is expected of you. Again, benefit of the doubt. I’m going to assume they didn’t see it. But man, it’s so frustrating to watch the Red Wings fail the punk test over and over and over. Sometimes justified, sometimes not. I think I think that was it just happened too fast. Like 40% it happened too fast, 40% it was too far behind the play, and 20% cider acknowledging the first two components I just said. Shouldn’t have engaged. He should have just skated away, taken the couple shots. And if Castle want to try to rough him up off the boards, you know, live to to fight another day. Let’s do the old Phil Kessle special where you just slash him as hard as you can at this point because I was sitting there saying, “Okay, you don’t there’s no Makavoy. There’s no pasta.” But at that point, I was like, “Okay, if they’re going to do that against Sid, then you just go run one of those guys.” But they weren’t playing that game. The Detroit Red Wings just lost to a you know, Pastronacless and and Makavoyless Boston Bruins. So that’s a whole different again hockey code it’s not nice and it’s stupid and everybody admits it’s stupid but there was a real big part of me that was watching the rest of that game just waiting for Ben Shro to grab Morgan Geeky just be like hey buddy we’re fighting and Morgan rightfully would say no we’re not to which Ben would then respond that wasn’t a question and you take the penalty if you take But you just start teeing off cuz if your goons are going to do it to your stars, it’s only fair the closest thing the Red Wings have to a goon does it to the Bruins star. And you can tell that’s the game that Boston was playing. They’re like, we’re missing two of our stars to superstars. And so they were playing a physical game all night and they were exploiting the the strength difference between the two teams. You know, we were talking in the chat. I was like, this is kind of like what playoff hockey is. and the Detroit Red Wings. It’s November, so I mean, you’re not making any sweeping declarations here, but they look woefully unprepared for that kind of game. That hit that Jano put on Sandine Pelica based on the way Sandy Pela’s body reacted, you’re like, “Oh, that must have been a dirty hit.” And you watch the replay, you’re like, “Oh, it was clean. It’s just way bigger and stronger.” He wasn’t expecting it cuz it was a nothing play. And again, I beating the same drum over again. It’s the same type of play that he’s never seen any of his teammates finish the hit on. Right. And so there’s a part of him going, “This is just a routine dump in, end of play.” Not realizing there’s a murderer coming at him. And here’s the crazy part. I know people were angry watching that game. I was The Bruins were right to do it. It was a smart game plan. Well, I mean, if you’re not going to have to pay the pay the price, like if Boston’s not having to is not receiving anything back, like why would you not? You’re down two of your stars. Hey, one of the very few games where we can say the Red Wings absolutely could have outskilled their opponent pretty comfortably. Absolutely the advantage there. So, the Bruins are like, we’re turning this into a street fight. We’re going to get dirty. We’re going to muck it up. We’re going to try to rattle them and we’re going to try and grind out a win because we know that team’s soft. We know we don’t have our stars. This is our best formula. And they executed it perfectly. Something I want to give credit for is Moider when he got back in the game, he played a physical game and he was laying hits and you can tell he wasn’t shying away from it. Nobody feels worse about that obviously than Moider. Like no, I get that you’re like, “Yeah, these guys are pros and they understand how it goes.” There’s no guy in this league who wants a video out there of him getting, you know, those last your entire career. Yeah. popped right in the button and then like that’s just going to come up on every single fight highlight reel for the next decade. He hates that and you have to know that rattled him physically and mentally a bit, but he came out there and he played a physical game. And this is going to sound rich, but I think you have to draw whatever silver lining and give whatever credit you can in that situation. Did he get worked in that fight? Yeah, absolutely. I’m not saying he did anything other than like essentially just get beat up by Castic, but he hung in a lot longer and took a lot more than a He’s got an iron chin. Yes, he took he was like Homer Simpson. Like he was just getting his It was like a He was getting tenderized. He got He got a couple of his own in. Nothing like what Castlick did. So, but yeah, he’s a tough customer for even being able to handle that and come back to the game. I was honestly really concerned that that was going to be a concussion and he’d be out. So kudos to him. But yeah, I what you said earlier, Brad, like it’s not an easy answer cuz you’re like aside from how this happened and how it played out with it being quick and behind the play, whatever. It’s like you’re not saying bring up a fourth line of of goons. Maybe if for Tuesday you find a way to get Shin or Watson in there. I don’t know. Yeah, I was going to say if I’m Steve Osman, Watson’s in the lineup Tuesday. Yeah. But also the team mentality of just all right, you don’t have a Castelic. There should be 10 gloved fists every single time a Castelic or Jano tries to use the size and physicality mismatch and goon it up with the Red Wings star. I hate saying it. That’s not even the right strategy cuz I don’t think the Red Wings have anybody who can go toe-to-toe with Jano and Castle. And no, no, that’s I’m saying everyone’s swarm. I still feel like if there’s a big scrum five on five and Castellate grabs one Red Wings singles him out as everything kind of gets divided up that could end poorly. Old school man. If I’m the Red Wings I am making Morgan Geeki’s night miserable. Forget Castelick. He knows what he’s out there for. Use the Bruins game plan against them. Every time Morgan Geeki is on the ice, Ben Sherro jumps the boards and he’s a heat-seeking missile. He does not care about anything else. Put three defenseman on the ice for all I care. Is By the way, is Morgan Geeky the forward version of Gustaf Forsling? Like a castaway player who’s let go by multiple teams? He’s really really good, but he’s also shooting almost 30%. So he’s he’s really good, but he’s not 20 goals in December. Good. Truly I had no idea he was had 20 goals, but again, I think he’s shooting like 28% or something like that. So he’s he’s Yeah. like what an insane pace he’s on. But yes, but that’s what the Red Wings have to do. They’re not going to win a fight against a Jano or a Castle cuz that is how the team is constructed. But they can make the night just as miserable for the Bruins key players as the Bruins have been doing to the Red Wings. Anyways, so geeky open scoring in the second period and Lucas Raymond ends up tying the game in the third after a very lifeless first 40 for Detroit. Nice passing play from Finny to Larkin to Raymond. Geeky on the power play gives Boston the lead. And with was it a minute 40ome left, Michael Rasmmanson scores. Lurin, beautiful pass to Kane. Kane, beautiful pass to Rasmmanson who just had to tap it in. Great couple of games there from Michael Rasmmanson. And Detroit like credit to them. Like I don’t think Boston outplayed them all game. It’s not like that Castle fight turned the tides of the entire game. I think Swayman was the best player for the Bruins by far and he was the biggest force in that game. Detroit didn’t test him a lot through the first two periods. You’re right, Brad. But he had to do his work. The Wings had a good third period. They woke up and they definitely outplayed Boston for those 20 minutes. And that I mean thin thin thin thin thin thin thin silver lining, but that is a silver lining of you saw it wasn’t a completely terrible effort. Overtime Detroit actually ends up with a power play. can’t convert on the four on three. That was the worst power play I ever watched in my life for a fouron three. Holy crap. And it goes to a shootout and the only person to score is Casey Middlestat. Swim and stops all three Red Wings shooters and Detroit loses in a shootout to the Boston Bruins. You watch that game, you’re like, this doesn’t feel like a result that Detroit deserved. But at the same point, it’s not like Boston took advantage of the two periods where Detroit was lifeless. They weren’t really that much better of a team. Detroit decidedly won that third period and they they could have escaped with that two points. So on one hand with how that went, you’re impressed that they even came out with a point. On the other hand, that’s four straight losses and things are not trending in the right direction for the Red Wings. I want to go back to something that Dylan Lin said after the Tampa Bay game and this goes into the the give a damn the the effort thing because yes, we’ve been harping on that a lot, but I don’t think it’s that simple. And I we’ve talked a lot on the show about these guys are kind of overthinking things. You can see them overthinking things. They get in their own heads. And Mlullen made some comments about, you know, this team caring. Like they they want it bad and he sees that. And I don’t think that’s all coach speak from him. He’s not hesitated to call out this team when they are careless or or lifeless or loweffort or whatever. So that means something. But I also look at what Dylan Lin said, and I quote, and this is from Max’s piece, you focus so hard on not turning the puck over. Don’t turn it over. Don’t turn it over. And guess what happens? You’re going to turn the puck over. Right now, we’re just so, you know, we want it so bad. And I can tell you that we’re listening to what we’re being told to do and we’re trying to do it. We’re trying to do it. It’s just we’re almost trying too hard. We’re not playing the game. When things aren’t going well, we just kind of sag. And it seems like the things that we talk about just keep happening. I don’t have a reason, but I know we’re trying to clean up those mistakes. And Mlen talking about they care. They care. And you know, he had a great practice, a really good practice. You can see that they care, but that only gets you so far. And those things point me to I think and we were talking about this Evan pre-show. Like I think this team absolutely cares, but I think this team is having to have so many heroic moments to pull themselves out of some kind of sag or slump in the middle of a game because the the the personnel isn’t there. The roster isn’t up to scuff. And good teams, yeah, pull themselves out of it and have the right mentality. Sure. But do they have to do it this often? No. because it’s the plain and simple answer is they have better players and it’s hard to constantly try to will yourself to this. Yeah, let’s rally around this boys and you’re like 4 minutes into the game and you’re already having to bring in that mentality. It’s exhausting and it’s not sustainable. It’s just that hockey doesn’t work that way. I get what they’re saying. I understand it fully and I don’t want to dismiss what Mlullen and Lin said because there’s a lot of truth to it. The gripping the stick too tight, out of rhythm and all that. But Larkin himself contradicted himself in that statement. He’s like, “And when things don’t go well, we can see it sag.” Is that not the definition of we’re giving up a little bit? No, but I don’t think that’s the case, Brett. I think it’s I think it’s like there’s Isn’t there a sense of hopelessness when you know like, wow, this just went against us and we have nobody to answer that. That’s defeist mentality. That’s what I hate. We’ve all played hockey here, especially Evan in junior C. He’s seen murders on the ice. Yes, I have. This is the part that I I do not accept because we’ve all been on teams. Every hockey player who’s played anything above house league has been on a team where something like what happened to Moider happens. One of your teammates gets dummied in a situation that should never happen. Everybody gets pissed off. The rest of that game is a gong show. We’ve all been in it routinely. a good team does not let that happen to one of your stars to forget stars does not let that happen to one of your friends, one of your brothers, one of your buddies. There’s a sense of that doesn’t happen to us and it happens to the Red Wings all the damn time. Is there anybody on the team that is designated to do that? No, but somebody’s got to do something on a forch check. You know you’re not going to get the puck. You know your pressure isn’t going to work. You’re a step behind and he’s going to make the outlet pass. That happens a million times a game. So be it. Hit the guy. We’ve seen the clip of Maurice in Florida saying, “Finish your checks. Wear them down.” This this was playoffs, so he’s talking about seven game series. He’s like, “Hit them now so they feel it in game seven. Four check and finish your check in the first period so they feel it in the third period.” I am sorry. There are too many things catastrophically obvious to the eye tests that are happening in a Red Wings game for me to believe they’re fully bought in. To believe their give a [ __ ] is as high as every other NHL team. I believe they go out there and they skate hard and they try to shoot the puck hard and they know what their systems are and they’re trying really hard and they’re focusing to do the things they’re supposed to do. But if they think their give a [ __ ] level is anywhere near NHL standard right now, I don’t know what the hell is going on in that room. Again, you can’t go out there and fight every night. You cannot finish 100% of your checks. It is not physically possible in an 82 game season and it’s a hell of a toll. I understand that. I do not expect Andrew Cobb or JT Comfort or Marco Casper or Lucas Raymond every time they’re hard in on a forche to try and put a guy into the third row. I get it. But every once in a while would give me some hope that these guys care. The fact that they’re coming out and saying this after some of the stuff that’s happened this season and they think it’s okay. Like I don’t mean to get on my soap box here, but Evan, I’m sure one of your teammates has gotten decked and you went in and grabbed someone who is much bigger than you. Someone got drop kicked. Yeah, I’ve done it. I have named game as the headbutt or uh No, no, no, no. I have gotten my ass kicked because one of my buddies got cheap shot and I was first man on the scene and I got my ass handed to me by a guy 40 pounds heavier than me. It happens and sometimes you take your medicine to show your teammates you care. If we can do that at our whale [ __ ] levels of hockey, how is an NHL team not doing that? And if you give the players, excuse me Mlullen saying to stay out of it, okay, fine, but that’s still a Mlullen issue. That’s still an issue of something happening in that room. Like teams bond over stuff like this. They feel that sense of camaraderie, which builds a sense of responsibility to each other, which means if I have a bad shift, I feel guilty for suing my teammates. And again, I understand the traditional meaning of we’re trying, we’re skating hard, we’re sweating and all that, and that’s not what I’m questioning with this team. I mean, sometimes, but mostly that’s not what I’m questioning, but like it’s not the effort, it’s the give a damn over and over and over. And until it gets better, I I don’t know what to say. I like, yes, 100%. I like I don’t think anyone can look at what you just said and and disagree fundamentally with where this team is at, especially with what Larkin mentioned about like he calls out what we all see, which is that the team sags. So, I’m not going to say they’re going out there and they’re doing what they need to do. Absolutely not. I just I think there’s a separation from caring and wanting to executing. And that’s fundamentally though, like I I it’s gonna sound inherently like I’m making excuses here when I’m firmly on the side of the argument that you just stated, but for the point of just putting it out there, there’s a fundamental difficulty to going out there and playing that kind of game. And it’s why so few teams can hang with the teams who do it come playoff time. Everyone talks about Florida, but the reason everyone’s been talking about Florida for a few years now is because that works in this NHL. It’s not all going it up. It’s not all scrums after the whistle and cheap shots and kachchucks and marians pissing you off. You have to mix some skill in there as well. And having, you know, one of the best two-way forwards in the game in Barkov and you have, you know, a phenomenal goalie in net and you have Well, it helps that you’re like rats are also some of your best players. And that’s that’s the point I’m making. It’s a blend of those two things. And it one begets the other, right? Like you’re that talented, it frees you up to play that game a little bit more. And you know like when you have to engage that game sometimes because the other team brings it to you at least you can score if you even after you lose one guy to the penalty box for 5 minutes and you know you’re not so nervous about going after a guy because you’re not always trailing in a game like you look at the whole Seanthaler thing. Detroit couldn’t go after Seganthaler. They were trying to tie the game. They were trying to tie that game and it was smart to not go after Seanthaler but it sucks. It’s a lot easier to impose your will when you’re winning. Yeah. Then that that’s the thing like I fully agree with with what Brad’s saying, but I think that that going out there and converting on the effort and the want and the passion and the drive also becomes a lot easier when you have better players. Oh yeah, nobody’s arguing the biggest problem on this team isn’t roster construction. Yeah, there are a lot of bad players on this team. So I I don’t want to dismiss that point because that is the single biggest problem on the team, but that can be patched up by other things they’re not doing. I want to win a Stanley Cup. I’m sure everyone in that room wants to win and win Stanley Cups, but at the end of the day, you know, whether it’s roster construction or individual ability, like sometimes you just don’t have it in you. Like some people just aren’t they either aren’t willing to or can’t. You know what I mean? Like I’m sure every single guy on that roster wants to win. Like there’s a reason why they play in the NHL. They’re some of the best athletes, most competitive people on the planet, but they just don’t have those inherent traits or ability to evolve and develop those traits to take it to another level. Later in that game, Sherro, it was right after the the hit Jano on on Sand Pelica. Sherro and Castlick were getting into it and I think Jano was around him as well and Castlick had Sherat, you know, from behind against the boards and then Jano was next to him and Sherat did something that I loved. It was a rat move. He waited there. He kind of held his arms out like I’m not engaging this. I’m not engaging in this. And it kind of disarmed them. Jano kind of just stood awkwardly and then skated away. And then when Castlick let up a little bit and gave Sherro the room, Shrot turned around and threw his arm or a fist at the side of Castle’s head. I’m like, “Yes, thank you.” like that. Like, you know who this team misses? Pon. Yep. They missed Pon in a bad way. Pon was just turned around, found the most oblivious person, just cross-checked him in the face. And would have been And then he was his teammate the next year, you know, like Exactly. That doesn’t fix everything on this team. This team was bad when Piranha and Sherro were on it. I’m not going to say that, oh, all of a sudden Detroit is going to be 110 point team because they have Pon and Shrot. No, they they miss the playoffs with those two guys as well. But Detroit is a better team now. Their roster construction is better. They’re able to score more. They’re able to defend a bit better. They certainly don’t have any good goalending to speak of still. So, that hasn’t changed. But then those guys, the margins that they work in can start to make a difference in a game because, you know, Ben Shut, I knew he would be one of the guys to go out there and and try to, you know, get a little bit of retribution and make sure you match the physicality so the game doesn’t get away from you. But he’s a defenseman. He’s not going to be below the other team’s red line to to harass their defenseman. He’s not going to be in every part of the ice because he’s fixed almost in his location by virtue of his position. And you can’t come in every scrum because then you’re going to have the face off moves outside the zone and it hurts your team. Like it can’t be just him. No, that’s the whole point of what I was saying. It can’t be just him. It’s got to be everybody on the team allin and every once in a while it’s going to suck. It’s how it is. But then at least you your guys know you got their back. And the talent issue is by far the biggest issue on this team. I mean, we’ve been to two games live recently. When you get in the building, it becomes abundantly more obvious. Just how far the gap is between the Red Wings talent and some of the top teams in the league. But again, Boston won that game not on tangibles. They won it on intangibles and goalending. and goalending, which is God, if you’re a struggling goalender, you see the Red Wings on the calendar, you walk into your head coach’s office, you’re like, I’m playing this game. So now everyone’s like, is Jeremy Swayman making the US Olympic team? Just hammer that win for the whatever bet is the goalie against the a slumping Red Wings. I don’t care if this, especially if it’s their first game. Oh my god. I don’t care if they’re an 87y old they plucked off the sidewalk because they’re like, “Our Ebugs Ebug isn’t here and we need you.” They’re getting that win. Oh yeah. All right. Well, more after this, but first, a quick break from the sponsors of the Wingville podcast. Let’s be honest, bad coffee should be worthy of a major penalty in a game misconduct. If you’re still drinking burnt, stale stuff out of a giant plastic tub, I’m telling you, it’s time to upgrade. Coffee Cult, that’s the real deal. They roast only the best of the best specialty grade Arabica beans in the world. We are talking elite level coffee. Every batch is roasted fresh after you order, so what shows up at your door hasn’t been sitting around for weeks. Right now, the star of their show is the holiday blend, and it is unreal. It’s a dark roast, 100% Arabica, using beans from Ethiopia and Guatemala. You get deep notes of baker’s chocolate and brown sugar. It’s warm, rich, and it’s festive without being gimmicky. Whether you’re gifting it or drinking it during a quiet morning by the tree, it just fits. Use code WWP at kof fuel l.com to get 15% off. And for the rest of the month, if your order is $50 or more, they’ll throw in a free black coffee cult mug. Also, free US shipping on orders of $49 or more. If you need a gift, go grab the coffee cult loot box. You get a branded mug and a 12 oz bag of mystery coffee all boxed up and ready to go. It’s a steal. It’s fun. You get to try new coffee, and it’s not another pair of socks. That’s coffee.com code WWP. Go get the good stuff. Welcome back. Between the break, we were lamenting that the Red Wings need some psychos. And Evan actually said that naturally, and that’s something that Brad said in a previous overtime. So, you know, it’s bad when these two are mindmeldding. Yes. That’s not a good sign. Evan’s going to go home and take a 7-hour long shower after that. Yeah. We don’t need a forward. We don’t need a defenseman. We don’t need a goalie. We need to scout by who is the most unstable. Yes. Who is most likely to commit an actual crime on the ice? I I said if they can read, I don’t want them. If you are a functioning human being off the ice, I don’t this not no space for you. We need someone who’s completely incompatible with society on this hockey team. All right, let’s take a look. So Thanksgiving has passed or for Canadians second Thanksgiving has passed and obviously that benchmark of you know American Thanksgiving playoffs is out the window with how historically tight the NHL is this year especially in the East through November. The Red Wings are currently sitting three points out of a playoff spot. More on that in a second. Upcoming they have Boston again on Tuesday. We’re going to be back with you for an episode on Wednesday. And then they have a little road trip here. They have Columbus, Seattle, Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, and Chicago all on the road. And that’s through the first 13 days of December. So, it’s going to be a tough December schedule at least to start with a West Coast road trip with a couple other, you know, closer but still on the road games at the start and end of that to bookend it. In the standings being three spots out of a wild card spot, Detroit’s only one point out. a couple more games played, but they could also be as low as, if my math is right, five spots out of a playoff spot if everyone wins their games in hand. Or, you know, after a couple good games here, they can be maybe in a divisional seat again. Like, it it’s all kind of crazy with how fast this moves for the Red Wings. Yeah, they’re one point behind the Montreal Canadians. Two more games playing, but still one point behind. Tampa Bay has won seven games in a row and they’re only six points behind them. like you only six points behind. Yeah. Not all hope is lost, but it’s just like the top and the bottom are all very very close. And we said, you know, a good week will catapult you forwards and a bad week will catapult you quickly behind. The Red Wings have eaten away from their hot start. They’re not out of it, but they’re certainly making me uncomfortable. There’s two things I’m thinking about here. One is even when they were playing bad, they got a point in a lot of those games. Yes. Yes, this four-game losing streak is bad, but before that they banked a lot and they got a point in a lot of those games or sometimes two points. They won a game where you’re like, how did you do it? But that said, they have eroded whatever lead there was semblance of even with how tight things are. The thing that gives me I’m not going to say hope but it it stops the floor from falling out of any you know hope capacity the fan base has is I think Todd Mlullen is right like yes at on one hand this team can only do so much like the effort and the willpower can only take you as far as your your roster is. We were talking pre-show of Ev and I think it’s it’s like an F1 car. Like your your driver can be phenomenal, your driver can be terrible, but the car is a car. It can only, you know, do what it can do. But we have seen them perform at better levels of execution than this. They have had problems with depth scoring. They’ve had problems with defending. God knows they’ve had terrible problems goending. Despite all that, they have performed well in games previously. So, there is room for them to in their own heads, between their ears, do better on the ice. And then if you want to be super crazy, if you want to just go completely out there and ask for a Christmas miracle, well then maybe the goalending can actually win a game. When was the last time goending won? Talbet has won a couple this year. I think maybe that the Red Wings shouldn’t have otherwise. But other than that, like the goalending certainly can’t get worse. Or if it does, it wouldn’t matter cuz they’re already losing those games. Where I’ve kind of and I know I alluded to it earlier in the episode of my big fear is this team kind of is what it is. Do you know that meme with the two guys sitting in the bus, one guy staring out at the sun, one guy staring out at the rock? On the one side, on the sunny side, it’s this team is being carried by an elite level core four, like elite level performance. And then on the rock side, it’s this team is being carried by four players. Yeah. Yeah. So it’s great that Larkin de Brinkit Raymond and Cider are as good as we could have possibly imagined. Like realistically for everything the Red Wings have had happen, not winning the lottery where they’ve been picking everything. Those four guys to be performing at that level is a minor miracle to have a core four that can compete with the top five to 10 in the NHL. But then, man, even when they were good, we were looking past them on the roster and yeah, you got some nights from Kane because you know what he can do on the power play. Edmonson’s been mostly good this year when he’s been healthy. Obviously, Sherat’s been good. Cindy Pelican, the rookies have had their moments, but there’s a lot of players on this roster beyond those four. And if you can only pick out a handful of bright spots, it’s it feels like this team still needs a bigger facelift than we would like to admit. There are certain elements of the hot start where people are like, “Oh, is this a flash in the pan?” You’re like, “No, like they their best players are actually playing very well.” And there’s certain elements where you looked at it and you’re like, “The law of averages will prove whether that’s real or fake.” And yeah, the problems on this team aren’t surprising. There’s still a problems on this team. They need a top four defenseman in a bad way. Hell, they need a better depth defenseman. They have a lot of poor options right now on defense. What was the one stat that I can’t remember if it was Max or Pashant was thrown in the group chat with the Red Wings top four on the ice? Their numbers actually weren’t that bad, but the bottom pair has been catastrophic this year. No matter who they’ve thrown out, that could just be a Travis Hamick joke, but genuinely JBD and Johansson have not been much better. And when Sherrot or Cider or Edmonson aren’t on the ice, they’re just getting caved consistently. And yes, I do think they still need to upgrade in the top four, but they have not been the problem. No, but slotting as we always mention. Yeah. Yeah. If you get Sherrot on that bottom pair, that changes things cuz he would be an upper tier number five defenseman in the NHL. Oh yeah. Like this team’s fortunes aren’t shot. They’ve been worse in previous years. It might feel really bad right now, but it’s one, your brain is suppressing how bad it was before, and two, like they’re one point out of it. They’re not five points out. They’re not 10 points out. They’re one point out of it right now. And that’s after four straight losses. You don’t even need a great December to be back in it. You need to just tread water. you stay 500 for this December, you’re still going to be in the mix in January, no matter how pissed off Evan will be that you still won’t know for sure whether this team is going to make it or not. Like, you don’t need heroic performances. You just need to perform on the upper end of what’s reasonable for your team, which is you’re a fringy team. You know, you need more from Casper. You need and as a product of that, you need more from Kane. You need more from your your depth defenseman. need more from your goalies. Your you need so much more from goalending. Johansson, I think, has been lesser this year than he was last year in terms of his performance, but those are all guys who are doing it before, so it’s there. That’s without making a move. There’s plenty of moves in theory that could be made, but it’s the NHL, so you can never bank on that. But and I I know we’ve ragged on their culture a lot and God knows we’ve done it enough this episode, but there is a part of me that really truly wonders because we’ve seen flashes from guys in the bottom nine up front. You know, Coner looked good for a few games. Appleton had a bit of a hot streak. Man, I don’t know what Todd Mlullen said to Michael Raspersonson, but this is the best Michael Rasmmanson’s looked in two years. The last two games he’s been winning battles, making passes. He’s been finishing plays around the net, which is what he’s supposed to be good at. But then when he’s good, well, JVR’s not doing much. Appleton’s not doing much. Cop’s not doing anything. Like, it’s just like they can only get one or two guys going at a time, which out of, you know, if you want to clump this into a group of six to eight guys, that ain’t a winning formula. Because again, I won’t even say Larkin’s line was particularly good against Boston, but they have enough skill. They still managed to get a couple goals on the board. I don’t expect everybody else to go out and do what those guys do. It’s not in their toolkit, and that’s okay. But man, it feels like just this rule of one at a time is because you see they can do it. That’s the frustrating part. Like now if Rasmuson regresses, I’m going to be upset because he looks great. Oh boy. Yeah. No, I’m aware. I’m aware, but it’s happened with all of them. No, he’s going to go through his Ben Shrodat arc right now. Also, something that a lot of people have pointed out to me, some of them shouting, Ben Shrot’s in a contract here, and they’re like, why aren’t you acknowledging that? It’s like for the same reason I wasn’t acknowledging how tenuous the the leading the Atlantic position was. Ben Sherro was going to get N another NHL contract regardless of his performance this year. There’s they’re creating more spots without let the guys to fill him. Like he’s going to get and the cap’s going up. He’s going to get his money. But it’s because you have to enjoy the good things while you can with these red wings. That’s that’s your approach to it right now because as we’ve seen week to week here, it’s it’s all very house of cards is almost giving it too much structure. There’s someone who said something a while back. I can’t remember which player it was. I feel like it might have been like a copper confer type maybe, but maybe it’s Ben Sherro. But it was like, you know, it’s easy to to feel good when the pucks are going in and the power plays firing and the fans are pumped and everything’s going well. It’s easy to ride those highs and and feel good and feel like you’re doing the right things then. But the teams who who do it and make a difference and actually are there come March, April for playoffs are the teams who grinded it out and found ways to scavenge points and wins even when things weren’t going your way, when the puck wasn’t going your way, when the calls weren’t going your way and and your team was hurt or wasn’t playing well, your goalies had a bad night. Like you you dig deep and you find a way to make it good then or at least stop the bleeding. And that is a we’ve seen the Red Wings build on the former. They’ve been able to ride the highs and really kind of snowball that over the past couple seasons. We’ve really seen that in a way where we hadn’t the previous eight. And I believe that. But they still have yet to develop that ability to pull themselves out, pull themselves up by their bootstraps and out of those funks and will themselves into positions. You can say to a degree they did that against Boston. I I will give them that credit. They scavenged that point in a game that they really shouldn’t have had. makes it all the more important the Tuesday game. Yeah. Was what we saw the other night against Boston in the third period a moment in time or is this team going to try and turn the funk around and and get back in the wing column? You know what’s a really good example of the point you just made? Boston yesterday missing their top defenseman, their top forward. Literally, we’re going to scrap out this win. Nikita Zador eraser, but go on. But they went in with a game plan knowing that they couldn’t outskill the Red Wings and they executed. They they punched the puck into the net basically. Did you guys see the graphic that Nikita Zidorov had like top six highest clocked skating speed this year in the NHL? When your legs are 7 feet long, I would hope that you can get going pretty quick. You have that kind of power. Yeah. I actually really like Nikita as a player. Look at it’s Austin fans. He’s got lots of like he’s a big dude, too. like he’s pushing a lot of weight. That guy’s a guy like him or hate him and Red Wings fans have plenty of reasons to to hate that guy, but that’s a guy who goes out there and plays with the kind of fighter that pisses off other teams, but that even if his performance on the ice has left Boston fans with a lot to be desired and they don’t love his contract, the piss and vinegar that he brings is valuable, I think, at times. You can’t overdo it with guys like him, but definitely Ben Shut, man. A little bit more money, a little bit more size, basically the same player. Way more term right now, though. Yeah, we’ll see what comes for the Red Wings in December. Across the league, I would love to give you a layout of, you know, who’s leading and who’s peeled away from the rest. The East is essentially everyone is still in it. The Buffalo Sabres are five points out of it right now and they are bottom of the East. In the West, you have the Colorado Avalanche who have one regulation loss. They have 42 points and eight 40 points percentage. Of their seven losses, six of them have come in. Their win percentage is better than our goalender save percentage. Oh no. Oh no. Hold on. Hold on. Their points percentages is 840. The fact that we have to look this up is not John Gibson’s save percentage as of right now is 8.65. Yeah. Suck at Colorado. Oh man. Oh god. Getting a little nervous for a second. 887 for Cam Tabet. Okay, that’s dicey stuff though. Oh no. 26 games of the year. That would have been rough. There’s no like there’s no quarter for any team right now in the NHL pretty much who wants to have any kind of safety or separation unless you’re like the Colorado type. So again, things are down and things are are gloomy and across all sports in Detroit and Michigan almost, but you’re not out of it. you get a couple Atlantic Division wins, you springboard right up the leaderboard. So, Boston on on Tuesday and then their next Atlantic Division game is on the 28th against the Toronto Makers. Oh, perfect. Excellent. Good time to turn it around. Yeah, just Hey, you’ll take it. All right, some updates on Red Wings prospects. We just we posted one of these graphics. I want to give everyone an update. Actually, it’s already out of date cuz Sebastian Kosa posted a shut out tonight. But at the time of posting, he was 71 and0 and 935 save percentage, 1.76 goals against average, but he posted a shut out today. Max Plant leading the NCAA in points in 16 games played, 13 goals, 13 assists for 26 points. Carter Bayer, 11 goals, 13 assists for 24 points. Didn’t he have a hat-tick the other night? He did. And then you have He was wearing a taco on his head. Did you see that? He was. Hell yeah. How can you hate that? How can you hate that? Trey Augustine rounding out the the Red Wings top 10 goalie pipeline. 938 save percentage, 1.66 goals against average. Dear lord, in the NCAA, Keanin, nine goals, eight assists, 17 points in 25 games played. And then Eddie Genborg, eight goals, seven assists in 24 games played, second in you, 21 points, and he’s much younger than 21. He’s believe he’s 18 years old still. So, you know, the Red Wings are going well in the pipeline. And some people are going to be looking at that and saying, “Well, I’m looking at the more immediate help in Kosa and are you going to see him?” And I know we talked about that recently, but that’s still a question in my mind depending on how December goes. Absolutely. I’m still thinking about that. Well, it’s Christmas Eve as we have laid it out. We’re going to make sweeping declarations on this team on not Christmas Eve, New Year’s Eve. So, January 1st might be the Sebastian Kosa recall. Steve, I know you’re listening. Just be patient. January 1st. Happy New Year 2026. Fresh start. I wish there weren’t about a 100 games between now and then. I would love for this to seem so stupid because Gibson has turned it around. Like Talbot is playing decidedly better than Gibson right now and he should be the floor of what any competitive team should be getting from a goalender. Like the absolute floor. But instead, relatively speaking, he is. It’s like how it’s like we can’t afford to not play him, but we can’t play him too much because we know what his limit of games played is. Do you think that Eerman will wait till just after New Year’s to recall KOSA and maybe make a few trades, send guys up, whatever it might be, just so we can’t use the title New Year, same team for the seventh year in a row. That’d be the dream. That’d be great. We wouldn’t even have to show up for that episode. We could just enjoy our hangovers at home. Maybe we should live stream for that. the three of us just dead on the couch. Regardless, I I mean, I think I think the KOSA conversation is still like it’s been called premature and I think I ultimately agree with people who say that to me when I I raise it, but at the same time, I’m not really You can only watch the goalending for so long in my mind. And so if we’re still saying this at the end of December, which is I think what we mentioned when we were talking about this with Max, like something’s got to give. And if it’s not going to be a trade, yeah, you got to shake things up at some point. All right, with that, we’re going to take another quick break here. And when we’re back, the final segment on this episode of the Wing Real Podcast. Back after this. We’re going to overtime. Overtime again is brought to you by our Patreon supporters. patreon.com/wingpodcast. the bonus episodes, the Discord, the giveaways, all of that, lots more. And they allow us to do everything that we do on the show. So, thank you to our patrons. Let’s take some questions from them. Sherat Shot says, “Montreal had a very bad season a few years ago and drafted Demidov with the fifth overall pick. I doubt any fans regret that terrible season now. Am I crazy for thinking a similarly bad season could be exactly what the Red Wings need right now?” We’ve only said that for the last nine years. So if it hasn’t worked before, this is the time. Yeah. If you can get a Demidov, then great. I I think like the way Demidov and the Michkov years, whatever you think of those players, like they shouldn’t have gone that low. And I I do think a little bit of that Russian fear of prospects is going to fade and you’re going to see fewer inefficiencies in the drafting in that regard. But yeah, I mean like if you can get a great player, if you can get a McKenna or Verhoff or whoever, absolutely. I still firmly believe that even at this team’s worst, this iteration of the Red Wings worst, they are too good to be that low. They would have to get insanely lucky in the draft lottery to move up to those kinds of positions cuz you have that core four that Brad was talking about who are you’re seeing them do it. It’s not even in theory. They are dragging this team to quite a few points relative to what you would expect from the rest of the roster. I don’t think they’re necessarily outperforming their their station by very much if at all. They just have really good high-end players right now and almost nothing behind them, especially in net. So, yeah, like I would love to sit there and say just be bad and then draft Demidov, but you can’t guarantee that and it would actually be kind of hard to do without selling. Cool. You finish fifth last and you draft seventh every time. Every time. It’s not worth it. Winging it from Boston says, “I was at the game in Boston watching the bees line up. Five in the neutral zone gives me 95 finals heebie-jebies. The book is out on the wings. Their forch check isn’t good enough for effective dump and chase. So clogging the neutral zone totally gets them out of rhythm. They need better in-game adjustments going forward or different players. 20% in-game adjustments, 80% they need better players.” Yeah, I fully agree. And Deon, you and I talked about this in the pre-recorded overtime this time as well. It was a bit of a weird day scheduling wise, but yeah, the Red Wings struggle against teams who do that. Like they just there were other games, I believe it was New York did the same thing and Detroit’s Barn and it was very effective and it takes Detroit like 40 plus minutes to figure out their way around it. Some players can get around it. Really effective crisp passing can get around it. Look at the Finny Lark and Raymond play. Look at the Lark and Kane Rasmuson play. But they haven’t been executing to that level enough. So that’s the 20% is the execution, but also if those guys are on the ice, then that’s the other 80% of they just need more players who can adjust on the fly. It’s a generalization, but it’s easier to game plan against bad players. It’s simple to say, but it that’s that’s how you you win games. It’s a little bit of a chess match. Jacob Charlip says, “So it seems like lottery luck is coming home to roost. Looking at the young studs on teams like Anaheim, San Jose, etc., And then watching our rookies struggle their way through the season has been sobering. Am I being too sensitive to this as we don’t see all teams rookies? Or is this our harsh reality? We said I think it’s a mix of both as boring of an answer as you might think it is. There’s no ifs ands or buts about it. There’s no Cellraini on this team. There’s no Bard on this team. There’s no even if you want to go lower in the draft, there’s no Demidov on this team. But you also look at how we talk about Mikov for example. I was like, who he could come in and be a potential solution. Go look at how Anaheim fans are talking about Mikov, you know, like he’s not performing to the level they thought he would. Look at Neich before Neich started to pan out. Like not performing to the level they thought he would in in New Jersey. Like it’s complicated. We probably have a lower opinion of Sandy and Deian Pelica right now than pretty much every other fan base in the league, but at the same time they don’t have the the fruits of the lottery luck that other teams have that you can’t deny that as uncomfortable as it is. Jeremy D says, “What do you think the Red Wings will look like if they managed to keep Pew Sud Pon and Gossar and they held on to Lion?” That is like as of right now, I’m not even talking about last season or the season before. As of right now, that’s a playoff team. With how well everyone else is going, that’s a playoff team in all likelihood. Yeah, they are definitely significantly better. The third line isn’t the train wreck that it’s been. Piron probably helps on the second line. So, you can put someone opposite Kane. Prawn might help on the third line. Like, even at that, yeah, heck, you just have Sudar and keep the top six as is, but throw out Sudter and Prawn on the third line. is a hell of a lot better than what they got. And gosh, a spare on the defense. Oh man. I mean, I don’t want to keep picking on the guys, but if he was their fifth defenseman right now, I’m not entirely convinced that one of you two wouldn’t be an upgrade with the way that pair’s going right now. Like, I know I I pick on this one a lot, but I do think Gossip Bear is actually the biggest free agency miss signing or letting guys walk the Red Wings have had. He wanted to stay and he didn’t need that much money. It was the terms of the contract and the Red Wings were too slow to to meet those terms and he left for a team that was giving him what he wanted, but he was happy to stay in Detroit and that’s what kills me is I I had all my criticisms of Goss Bear that season, especially during the worst of it cuz he was a black hole defensively, but God, you know what? I would rather take a black hole defensively who’s going to put up 40 to 50 points offensively. to at least help you out a little bit rather than a black hole defensively and also a black hole offensively. You know, it’s I don’t know. It’s hard to watch. I think a lot of his defensive improvement, if you want to call it that, that’s a product of Carolina’s system. You can’t deny that for sure. I don’t care how well you try to isolate those analytics, but at the same time, you can’t tell me he wouldn’t make this team better. That one kills me a little bit. Mr. Jacuzzi, last one here, says, “What’s the fix for the softness of this team? They consistently get bullied.” And and we talked about that all episode, but I really want to kind of close on the point of I personally agree with what you said, Brad. Coming in and bringing in one goon, not an answer. I I absolutely like short term, I want Watson or or Shine in on Tuesday against Boston. Absolutely. You have to have an answer. And you don’t want your best players fighting. I don’t want Larkin to go in there, but I know he will. But I don’t want him to go in there. We don’t need someone breaking their hand. But overall, it’s how do you get the entire team to engage to or whatever Brad said, however you feel about it. It’s it’s it’s got to be a mentality thing rather than or in addition to just adding one or two guys. It’s a snowball effect. It’s just got to start with one thing. And again, stupid hockey code, stupid hockey culture. Not that he would do it, but just to pull a name out of the air. If Mason Appleton grabs Morgan Geeki in the first period, that’ll get the boys fired up. And then imagine someone grabs Zaka in the second period. And then all of a sudden, Sherrot lines up Castillic and puts him into the boards. Like that’s how much you can that’ll have an impact on one game. If you know the snowball just keeps rolling every game over and over and over and over again, it’s never going to be one thing. Let’s not forget, you go back 10 years, what was the biggest joke franchise in the entire NHL? The Florida Panthers. The snowball’s got to start somewhere. All right, we actually have one more here that I wanted to mention. Rasmmanson and Petri on a 2 and 0 breakaway says, “This team plays better when they’re chasing a rookie’s first career goal. It’s time to bring MBN back. I actually do believe it may be time. He embodies everything we want this team to be and we are a better team with him in the lineup even without him scoring which will come. I I like he’s going well in Grand Rapids. I don’t hate it. I I don’t think you mortgage long-term development and success, but if you’re at all comfortable with how he’s playing down in Grand Rapids and and you’re fine with you sit him down and say, “Hey, this this isn’t a permanent call up necessarily unless you make it one, but we want to try you out some.” Might be for a game. It might be, you know, spot filling here and there. Might be nine minutes, then we send you back down after a few games, but I don’t hate some different looks. We’ll see. All right, that’s all for this episode of the Winding Wheel Podcast. Thank you so much for tuning in. Thank you to the sponsors of the Windheel Podcast and thank you to all of our Patreon supporters. Again, patreon.com/wheelodcast. 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Detroit, and Michigan, sports are going through a tough time right now, and unfortunately the Detroit Red Wings are at the center of that.

Tune in as we begin by discussing the Red Wings’ 6-3 loss to Nikita Kucherov and the Tampa Bay Lightning, including strong play from Michael Rasmussen & J.T. Compher, poor play and turnovers after a Gibson save from Simon Edvinsson & Moritz Seider, Johansson and Bernard-Docker getting beat on defense, and more in a frustrating game for Todd McLellan’s squad.

Next, Detroit’s shootout loss to Jeremy Swayman and the Boston Bruins, including Kastelic’s mismatch fight where Moritz Seider got dropped, our thoughts on the response from Ben Chiarot but not too many other Red Wings, Dylan Larkin, Lucas Raymond, Patrick Kane, and others contributing offensively, & Detroit being too slow to pick things up in the loss. After that, Dylan Larkin and Todd McLellan’s comments about effort, care, and overthinking the game, and how that’s affecting players like Marco Kasper, Patrick Kane, Nate Danielson, Alex DeBrincat, and Emmitt Finnie.

We then take a look at the NHL & Atlantic Division standings, Steve Yzerman’s team’s December outlook, and what can be done to maintain standing in the tight playoff race – can Cam Talbot and John Gibson start providing more support in net?

After that, an update on the Detroit Red Wings prospect pipeline, including notes on Sebastian Cossa (will Yzerman call him up at some point?), Trey Augustine, Max Plante, Carter Bear, Jesse Kiiskinen, & more Hockeytown hopefuls.

All of that & lots more before we take your questions and comments in our Overtime segment – enjoy!

Intro: 00:00

TBL Game Recap: 3:40

Seider/Kastelic Fight & BOS Game Recap: 12:10

Larkin & McLellan’s Effort Comments: 25:50

Atlantic Division Update & Red Wings Outlook: 39:10

Prospect Update: 53:45

Overtime: 56:50

Head over to wingedwheelpodcast.com to find all the ways to listen, how to support the show, and so much more!

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Max’s Article: https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6841583/2025/11/27/todd-mclellan-red-wings-defense/

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