The call for the holiday weekend is for stormy weather, and no, local meteorologists aren’t mistakenly looking at analytic charts on the Detroit Red Wings when coming up with that forecast.

Although, to be fair, stormy weather certainly encompasses the ice surface during recent Red Wings games.

Another tornado of terrible struck at Little Caesars Arena on Friday afternoon. The Tampa Bay Lightning whipped the Red Wings 6-3. That’s back-to-back losses in which Detroit has surrendered six goals.

The Wings have allowed 23 goals over the past five games. They’ve given up four or more goals in four of those five games, and at least five goals in three of the contests. To sound the alarm even further, all but one of those five games was played on home ice.

Detroit is 1-4 over that five-game run of dismal defensive performance.

“We gifted them the second one and the four-on-four one (that made it 5-3 Lightning),” Detroit coach Todd McLellan said. “That’s just the way it is. And we’re not good enough to be giving stuff away for free. But I know you’ve all heard that story before.

“So until we fix it and take care of it, then we’ll keep having these issues. Said the same thing two days ago (following Detroit’s 6-3 loss to Nashville).”

Red Wings Were All-Around Bad

On the second Tampa Bay goal, Lightning forward Gage Goncalves picked the pocket of Detroit defenseman Albert Johansson.

GIMME THAT 💪

Gage Goncalves with the steal and the goal! pic.twitter.com/7inz2kf1S9

— NHL (@NHL) November 28, 2025

“Just an individual faux pas, whatever you want to call it,” McLellan said. “Like, there’s no system. There is no structure.

“The other 20 guys … dressed … had zero to do with the play.”

The four-on-four goal was a comedy of errors by Detroit’s top defensive pairing. Moritz Seider turned the puck over in the defensive zone. Simon Edvinsson allowed Jake Guentzel to gain an inside position at the net front, and Guentzel redirected the puck past Detroit goalie John Gibson.

“Tipped in front by Jake Guentzel!!!”

The Lightning take advantage of a turnover!#TBLvsDET

🎧: https://t.co/S6Y9Tynk9H
📻: @1025TheBone pic.twitter.com/IEZLSHqM9N

— Lightning Audio Network (@BoltsRadio) November 28, 2025

“That’s probably a pair of D that are just fumbling around in their end, and that leads to frustration,” McLellan said. “So now everybody else is frustrated.”

Do Red Wings Have The Right Personnel?

McLellan even went as far as to venture into the area that most of you are certainly pondering at this moment – do the Red Wings have a team that can win?

“First of all, you got to look and say, ‘Okay, are we good enough? Do we have enough talent?’ Yeah, we do,” McLellan said. “We don’t get 13 wins, 25 games in without having a team that can play well enough.

“So are we playing well enough? No, we’re not. Why aren’t we?”

McLellan acknowledged that some of the miscues are team errors that can be corrected through better systems play. It’s the individual blunders that cause him the most concern. Are they symptoms of a greater ailment, a sign that there are players who simply can’t cut it as NHLers?

“If you’re an individual and you’re playing, clean it up,” McLellan said. “And if you can’t, then we got to start asking ourselves, ‘Do you belong?’

“This is about all of us. If you can’t clean it up, we gotta figure things out.”