Late Saturday afternoon, there were familiar refrains being uttered by the Detroit Red Wings. And on Halloween, there were hauntingly familiar outcomes to be dealt with yet again by this consistently confounding club.
Saturday afternoon’s game against the St. Louis Blues was one the Red Wings have to win if they are expecting to be in playoff contention.
They got goals from all four lines. The power play produced. The Wings were up two goals nearing the midway point of the third period.
Yet when all was said and done, the scoreboard read Blues 5, Red Wings 4.
“The details slipped,” Detroit forward Keegan Kolesar said. “Forecheck, neutral zone, D-zone.
“I mean, we gave them grade-A opportunities. We leave a man in front of the net wide open. They made good on it.”
Three third-period goals in 4:38 – the last two 18 seconds apart – gave the Blues the win.
Detroit coach Todd McLellan was flummoxed by his team’s ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
“We score four goals, okay,” McLellan said. “And we thought we might be short on scoring.
“We win the special teams battle, we’re in control of a game, and we lose it. So all of that’s on us.
“All that’s on us 100%.”
Familiar Lament For Red Wings
McLellan’s lament is familiar. The Wings talked about building an identity following Thursday’s win over Chicago. Unfortunately, the identity they continue to construct is one of a team that can’t live with prosperity.
As soon as they look to be figuring things out, they take another pratfall.
You’re tired of seeing it happen. They’re tired of seeing it happen.
And yet, it continues to happen.
“I don’t necessarily think it’s a lesson,” Detroit forward Lucas Raymond said. “We have a two-goal lead in the third period at home. We should be able to close that game without swaying from our game.”
The Wings didn’t just sway; they bent. And then they broke.
“They made a few adjustments, but we were lazy,” McLellan said. “We were a little bit sloppy, and we didn’t do what we needed to do. And it came back to bite us.”
McLellan felt his team’s demise began to fester in the second period when the Wings held a 3-1 lead.
“There were some turnovers in the middle of the period,” McLellan said. “We got stalled coming through the neutral zone. Not because of what they were doing. It was on our tape, and it started to come back our way.
“If we get through the period, I think we can fix things. But now we get scored on.”
Jimmy Snuggerud jammed home puck from the edge of the Detroit goal crease with 27.1 seconds left in the second frame.
“Just a sloppy play, in my opinion,” McLellan said. “And all of a sudden the momentum’s starting to swing, and we have to learn to deal with that.”
Time for Implementing Lessons Learned is Long Past
Raymond and McLellan are both right here. It’s not about learning lessons. Into their third season under McLellan, this team should understand how to close out games.
Yet, they don’t seem capable of doing it. Not all the time, mind you. Just often enough to ensure that they’ll be good enough to just miss the playoffs again this spring.
“We’re still figuring it out, but we’re getting to the point where we have done it long enough,” McLellan. “Now do it. So there’s not much confusion. Players aren’t coming to the bench going, ‘Hey, well, what happens here or what happens there?’ It’s do it. Get it done.
“You know, it’s an engine. All the pieces go together, and if something’s wrong in the engine, then it’s the whole car that breaks down. So we’ll fix it.”
Will they, though? We’ve heard this talk before, but it never seems to evolve into a consistent answer.
Kolesar, who played in the Stanley Cup Final last spring with Vegas, knows that good teams don’t let games like this one get away.
“We just got to sit with this the rest of the day, and we’ll sit with it until the next game,” Kolesar said. “And it’s not a good feeling.”
It is, however, a familiar feeling for this team.
Bob Duff has worked in the sports media industry since 1984 and covered the Red Wings since 1988. As … More about Bob Duff