DETROIT – The Detroit Red Wings are justifiably concerned about their lack of secondary scoring and reliance on three players for the bulk of their offense but were reminded again on Wednesday what matters most.

“You guys can probably use your own notes from about a week or 10 days ago when I said until this team figures out that they have to value checking and defensive play, I’ll keep telling you the same things, and lo and behold, here I am again,” coach Todd McLellan said. “So back to the drawing board tomorrow.”

The Red Wings’ 6-3 loss to Nashville at Little Caesars Arena further exposed their defensive deficiencies. The Predators scored five goals, including an empty-netter, in the third period to erase a 2-1 deficit.

“I thought we were quite casual early in the game,” McLellan said. “Our passing was horrendous. There was nothing crisp about our game and somehow our power play kept us even.

“And then when the third period starts, we gave up four in every different fashion you could think of — four-on-four, faceoff coverage, off a rush and off a D-zone breakout. There’s really no other element to the game where you can get beat.”

It was particularly concerning to see Nashville score twice in rapid-fire fashion on two occasions in the third. First, Nick Blankenburg and Roman Josi scored 15 seconds apart less than 2½ minutes into the period. Then, with the game tied 3-3, Ryan O’Reilly and Erik Haula scored 28 seconds apart with a little more than five minutes remaining.

“Did we let our guard down? Yeah, we probably did,” McLellan said. “We made mistakes. They ended up in our net. And when I say that it sounds like I’m blaming the goalie (Cam Talbot), but I’m not. You bury yourself. You just keep putting sand on your head. And when you can’t breathe, now you want to dig your way out. It doesn’t work.”

Moritz Seider and Lucas Raymond said their team didn’t show enough intensity in the third period.

“Every time there was a crucial battle, we kind of lost it,” Seider said. “We have to be way harder to defend. Play with a little bit more swagger and then just really up our intensity.

“We got to make more plays with authority. We can’t be afraid to step up or make a play in our own zone.”

Said Raymond: “We got to have a better sense of urgency. We wanted to come out and play a hard, tough game and make it hard on them. When a team is struggling a little bit, you want to kill that momentum. And even with that, I think we still come into the third period in a great spot to win a hockey game at home, and we just got to get it done.”

The Red Wings (13-10-1) led the Atlantic Division a week ago. Now they’re out of a playoff position.

“Every time we get something and we grab onto it, we give something else back,” McLellan said. “It’s not a sign of a good team. Good teams hold their lessons and they build off of them.”