{"id":529941,"date":"2026-03-29T21:02:49","date_gmt":"2026-03-29T21:02:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/529941\/"},"modified":"2026-03-29T21:02:49","modified_gmt":"2026-03-29T21:02:49","slug":"are-red-wings-up-to-the-playoff-challenge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/529941\/","title":{"rendered":"Are Red Wings up to The Playoff Challenge?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Detroit Red Wings coach <a href=\"https:\/\/detroithockeynow.com\/red-wings-mclellan-back-to-the-drawing-board\/\" type=\"post\" id=\"20733\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Todd McLellan<\/a> answered the question quickly, as if he knew it was going to be posed at some point.<\/p>\n<p>Why do the Red Wings struggle so much to measure up as the NHL schedule grows tougher?<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf\u00a0I,\u00a0or\u00a0we,\u00a0or\u00a0the\u00a0organization\u00a0had\u00a0the\u00a0answers,\u00a0we\u2019d\u00a0be\u00a0putting\u00a0our\u00a0fingers\u00a0on\u00a0them,\u201d McLellan said.<\/p>\n<p>Factoring in Saturday\u2019s 5-3 home-ice loss to the Philadelphia Flyers, <a href=\"https:\/\/puckpedia.com\/team\/detroit-red-wings\" type=\"link\" id=\"https:\/\/puckpedia.com\/team\/detroit-red-wings\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Detroit<\/a> is now 7-10-3 since Jan. 24. On that date, the club stood first in the Atlantic Division and tied for first overall in the Eastern Conference.<\/p>\n<p>Today, the Red Wings are 10th in the East, facing an uphill battle to make it to the NHL postseason.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u00a0are\u00a0up\u00a0and\u00a0down,\u201d McLellan said. \u201cIs\u00a0it\u00a0the\u00a0stress\u00a0of\u00a0the\u00a0year?\u00a0I\u00a0don\u2019t\u00a0know.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Do the Red Wings have the right stuff to make the Stanley Cup playoffs? That we also don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n<p>Recent history, along with this season\u2019s results to date, suggests that they do not.<\/p>\n<p>Red Wings Struggle To Live With Prosperity<\/p>\n<p>Fresh off an impressive 5-2 road win on Friday over the Buffalo Sabres, the current Atlantic Division leaders, the Red Wings returned home to take a massive pratfall against the Flyers.<\/p>\n<p>Philly raced out to a 4-0 lead before the Red Wings decided to show up for the game.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cUnacceptable by us to play like that for the first couple of periods,\u201d Detroit forward <a href=\"https:\/\/detroithockeynow.com\/debrincat-is-red-wings-shooting-star-mclellan\/\" type=\"post\" id=\"20908\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Alex DeBrincat <\/a>said. \u201cWe gotta be way better.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Can they play better? Yes. Can they do it with regularity? Who knows?<\/p>\n<p>And it\u2019s that latter answer which is most frightening. That we don\u2019t know speaks volumes about the intestinal fortitude \u2013 or lack thereof \u2013 of this team.<\/p>\n<p>Detroit Showed Little Energy<\/p>\n<p>Some will use the excuse that the Red Wings were playing the second game of back-to-backs on Saturday, but McLellan isn\u2019t buying that theory.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWell,\u00a0we\u2019ve\u00a0played\u00a0against\u00a0teams\u00a0back\u00a0to\u00a0back,\u00a0and\u00a0they\u00a0seem\u00a0to\u00a0have\u00a0energy,\u201d McLellan said. \u201cWe were in\u00a0our\u00a0own\u00a0beds\u00a0last\u00a0night\u00a0at\u00a0a\u00a0good\u00a0hour. We brought guys\u00a0down\u00a0in\u00a0the\u00a0morning\u00a0and didn\u2019t pre-game\u00a0skate.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u00a0didn\u2019t\u00a0waste\u00a0any\u00a0energy\u00a0there.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>They didn\u2019t waste a whole lot of energy on the ice over the first 54 minutes of Saturday\u2019s game, either.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u00a0think\u00a0some\u00a0guys\u00a0came\u00a0to\u00a0compete,\u00a0but\u00a0not\u00a0think\u00a0at\u00a0all,\u201d McLellan said. \u201cWorking hard and working smart have\u00a0to\u00a0go\u00a0together. If\u00a0you\u2019re\u00a0not\u00a0doing\u00a0at\u00a0least\u00a0one\u00a0of\u00a0the\u00a0two,\u00a0you\u2019re\u00a0in\u00a0trouble.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd\u00a0we\u00a0had\u00a0some\u00a0guys\u00a0that\u00a0were\u00a0doing\u00a0neither.\u201d<\/p>\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">The Flyers may have broken the Detroit Red Wings franchise tonight. <\/p>\n<p>David Perron gets a 10 minute misconduct and goes after the official. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/GN0a8IxlZR\" rel=\"nofollow\">pic.twitter.com\/GN0a8IxlZR<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Flyers Nation (@FlyersNation) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/FlyersNation\/status\/2038085186831736941?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">March 29, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Teams also talk about how much tougher the games get in February, March, and April. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cAt\u00a0this\u00a0time\u00a0of\u00a0the\u00a0year,\u00a0you\u00a0should\u00a0be\u00a0elevating\u00a0the\u00a0level\u00a0of\u00a0play,\u201d McLellan said.<\/p>\n<p>Instead of stepping up, all too often the Red Wings are stepping aside, allowing other teams to pass them by.<\/p>\n<p>                                                    <script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Detroit Red Wings coach Todd McLellan answered the question quickly, as if he knew it was going to&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":529942,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[463,464],"tags":[1511,93,5,4,60,14,104,718,1930],"class_list":{"0":"post-529941","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl-playoffs","8":"category-stanley-cup-playoffs","9":"tag-detroit-hockey-now","10":"tag-detroit-red-wings","11":"tag-hockey","12":"tag-nhl","13":"tag-nhl-playoffs","14":"tag-stanley-cup","15":"tag-stanley-cup-playoffs","16":"tag-stanley-cup-playoffs-nhl","17":"tag-todd-mclellan"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116314492366607215","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/529941","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=529941"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/529941\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/529942"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=529941"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=529941"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=529941"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}