DETROIT — Everyone talks about the difficulty of being sharp in the second game of an NHL back-to-back situation, but no one seems has figured out how to make the second contest less of a hardship.

That’s particularly true for the Detroit Red Wings.

They fell behind 2-0 and chased the game until the buzzer sounded on a 4-1 home loss to the Utah Mammoth Wednesday. Because of a condensed schedule necessitated by using NHL players in the 2026 Winter Olympics, the Red Wings have endured six back-to-back situations and lost the second game five times. Opponents are outscoring them by wide margins.

“I’m not sure that we’ve scored first in any of those games, which makes it more difficult,” Detroit coach Todd McLellan said. “But I don’t think there’s anything that’s in my mind that’s sticking out, but that’s without doing any, any type of review.

On Oct. 22, they lost in Buffalo 4-2 and then lost 7-2 on the road to the New York Islanders. On Oct. 30, they beat the Los Angeles Kings 4-3 in a shootout and then were bombed 5-2 by the Anaheim Ducks on the second night.

Their only win a second game of a back-to-back came on Nov. 15 when they beat the New York Rangers 2-1. The night before, they had lost at home 4-3 in overtime to Buffalo.

Opponents Own Second Games

On Nov. 28-29, they lost at 6-3 at home to Tampa Bay and fell 3-2 to Boston in an away game the next night.

On Dec. 11, the Red Wings fell 4-1 to Edmonton after downing Calgary 4-3 the night before

Adding in the 4-1 Mammoth win against Detroit Wednesday, the Red Wings have been outscored 24-10 in the second game of those six back-to-back game situations.

“We’re going to have to be a little better on back to backs with our schedule moving forward with all of them coming up here and some really tough matchups like this,” Detroit captain Dylan Larkin said.

The Red Wings have three more back-to-back games scheduled, including a home-and-home Saturday and Sunday against a surging Washington Capitals teams. The second game will be at home.

The final two back-to-backs are New Year’s Eve (home against Winnipeg and New Year’s Day at Pittsburgh, and then Dec. 12-13 with a home game against Carolina and an away game against Boston.

The Red Wings must have better starts in those second games, play better five-on-five and manage the game properly. An early lead would help. e