Red Wings' Todd McLellan reveals concern after blowout Kraken win
01/12/2025 09:02 PM
The Detroit Red Wings are one of the hottest teams in the NHL at this point. Todd McLellan took over the Red Wings bench on Boxing Day after Derek Lalonde received a pink slip. The Red Wings lost to the Toronto Maple Leafs in McLellan’s first game as head coach. However, they have not lost since. Detroit’s 6-2 win over the Seattle Kraken on Sunday marked their seventh straight win.
Detroit’s seven-game winning streak is the longest active streak in the league at this time. Moreover, it’s the team’s first winning streak of at least seven games since 2012, according to The Athletic’s Max Bultman. However, McLellan was not completely satisfied with the game. And he opened up about a concern he has about the team’s upcoming off day.
“Tomorrow’s an off day — a mandatory off day. Actually, that concerns me a little bit because of the way this game kind of played out. You have a 4-0 or 5-0 lead really quick, and it gets loose,” the Red Wings bench boss said, via the team’s official YouTube channel. “Some things aren’t really important and you have a tendency to give something back. In an ideal world, it’d be nice to have a practice tomorrow. But we do, so we’ll see how the group responds to that test.”
Todd McLellan reviews Red Wings’ performance in Kraken win
The Red Wings raced out to a 4-0 lead in the first period, as Todd McLellan mentioned. The Kraken were on the back foot the entire game. It was Detroit’s goal. Seattle played the night before, and Detroit certainly wanted to take advantage of that.
However, McLellan noticed some issues with how the team performed as the game went along. The veteran bench boss saw his team become more loose as the game progressed. And this allowed the Kraken to score a couple of goals to make the scoreline a bit closer than the game itself suggested.
McLellan mentioned that wins and losses don’t matter when assessing his team’s performance. There are good performances in defeat as well as less-than-ideal efforts in victory. There are lessons to be learned in every game, and McLellan found things from Sunday’s performance he’d like to clean up.
“I don’t think you have to win or lose to evaluate how you played. We won today 6-2. It wasn’t our best game of the streak by any means, in my opinion. We gave up too much, we were too loose. Hence why I’d like to have that practice tomorrow,” the Red Wings coach explained. “It’s a little harder to sell because they knew it was 5-0 or 6-1 and doesn’t get as important. But I don’t think you have to win or lose to hammer home a point.”
The Red Wings have brought themselves back into playoff contention. In fact, they are only two points back of the Columbus Blue Jackets for the final Wild Card spot in the East. However, their head coach wants a more complete performance. Perhaps he receives such a performance on Tuesday when Detroit goes for their eighth straight win against the San Jose Sharks.
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