Following their epic comeback on Saturday, Detroit Red Wings coach Todd McLellan found himself in two minds as to what his next step should be.
Was he to praise his club for the resilience they showed in battling back from a 4-0 deficit to beat the St. Louis Blues 6-4?
That was one option. The other was to deal with the more perplexing concern.
Should he be scolding his team for their persistent malady of needing wakeup calls in the midst of games?
There’s an old saying in the game that catch-up hockey is losing hockey, and it’s absolutely true. Teams that continue to dig themselves into holes will ultimately find themselves buried.
“We can’t pick and choose segments of games where we want to play to our identity.”
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— Detroit Red Wings (@DetroitRedWings) October 26, 2025
“We have to figure this thing out,” McLellan said. “We can’t be a yo-yo like that.
“I believe we’re closer to the second-half team than we are to the first half. But the proof is in the pudding. It has to show up over and over and over again.
“We can’t pick and choose fractions of the game or segments of games where we want to play to our identity.”
Ongoing Problem For Red Wings
Slow starts by this team predate McLellan’s arrival as coach late last year. It’s been an ongoing issue. It was a problem under Derek Lalonde, and it was a problem under Jeff Blashill.
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— Detroit Red Wings (@DetroitRedWings) October 26, 2025
Even though it seems to be so elusive, defenseman Moritz Seider believes the elixir for this ailment is a simple task. The Red Wings need to bring a halt to their habit of committing self-inflicted wounds.
“Mistakes we can all eliminate,” Seider said as to the cause of the poor starts. “I think it wasn’t really that we were overwhelmed with the opponent. I think we’re kind of overwhelmed with ourselves. And that’s an easy fix.”
Yet finding that adhesive continues to be easier said than done for this team.
“It’s a part of our game that we really need to clean up,” forward Andrew Copp said.
The Red Wings know how they need to play the game to succeed.
“When we’re playing fast and we are forechecking and on top of their D, we can be very good,” Copp said. “I think that would be what we want our identity to be.”
They know what kind of team they are when they play to that identity.
“You can see once we roll, we kind of roll with anyone,” Seider said. “And that’s definitely something positive.”
The key to a successful future is to find a way to play consistently like they aren’t trying to keep that identity a secret.