DETROIT — From the very first minute of his introductory news conference Friday, Todd McLellan made clear what kind of changes he intends to inspire as the new head coach of the Detroit Red Wings.
He and new assistant coach Trent Yawney weren’t coming in to wave any magic wands, he said. With their first game scheduled just hours after their first practice, they weren’t going to change forechecks and defensive zone coverages. Instead, they were going to ask the players for something simpler.
“To play harder, to play faster, and a little bit smarter,” McLellan said. “And those are three simple things that I think we can control without any type of tactics or systematic structure play.”
And as for how that went over in the locker room? The first hint came soon after, when Moritz Seider was asked about McLellan wanting the team to play faster and smarter.
“You (left) out ‘harder,’” Seider said — an indication of a message seemingly received.
But as for a message implemented? Well, it looks like that part might take a little longer.
The Red Wings fell, 5-2, to the Toronto Maple Leafs in McLellan’s Detroit debut, and were once again booed off the Little Caesars Arena ice after finishing the second period down 5-0.
“We’ve got work to do, I think that’s fairly evident,” McLellan said afterward. “The game allows us a roadmap now. We know where we’ll go to begin with tomorrow in practice. And it’s evident, you don’t have to be a hockey expert to see that some of our entry coverage, some of the D-zone parts of the play have to get fixed.”
McLellan’s L.A. Kings teams of recent years had a strong track record as a defensive team, so perhaps it’s unsurprising that area is where he will turn his attention first. Obviously, it’s not the only area the Red Wings need help — Detroit has three total goals in its last three games — but it sounds like it’s where they’ll build from.
“That’s what happens when a team’s not playing real well: half the group is saying, ‘we’ve got to be better offensively,’ and we hear it from (media), and deservedly so,” McLellan said. “But then there’s the defensive side of it. So we’ve got to pick one, and we’ve got to get after it. And for me, that’s on the defensive side after what I saw tonight.”
If there was a theme of various interviews conducted before and after Detroit’s morning skate on Friday, it came via the word “spirit.”
First, it was Yzerman, saying that watching the Red Wings play recently, “the spirit was zapped out.” Then it was McLellan, right after his harder, faster, smarter comments, saying the spirit of the team had to improve. And then it was the players — all three of them who spoke to the media Friday morning. Seider said it. Patrick Kane said it. Dylan Larkin said it.
“The things that Todd wants to bring in are simple things, but bringing team spirit and life back to us,” Larkin said. “And that’s something that we’ve been lacking.”
Certainly, that had been true in watching the Red Wings of late. Larkin had emphasized the team being “disconnected” in what turned out to be their last game under Derek Lalonde. I’ve used the word “flat.” It’s all probably getting at the same idea.
You can debate just how much of that changed on Friday. Detroit came out with some jump early, but the 3-0 deficit after the first period was followed by a four-shot-on-goal output in a second period that was again uninspiring. That period also ended on a deflating fifth goal that came after Detroit had won a defensive zone faceoff with less than 10 seconds left.
If you’re looking for some silver lining, it came in the form of two third-period goals as a sign of life, both goals via two of the Red Wings’ young building blocks, Lucas Raymond and Simon Edvinsson.
“Nobody wants to be five down heading into the third period,” McLellan said. “I’ve been on that side of the coin for multiple times throughout my career, and it has a better chance of getting to seven than it does 5-2. So there’s a fight that the players maintained and instilled. There wasn’t a lot of pouting on the bench. So those are good signs.”
Simon Edvinsson gets one back for the Red Wings in the third!#LGRW pic.twitter.com/UemzG4xYd3
— Hockey Daily 365 l NHL Highlights & News (@HockeyDaily365) December 28, 2024
That may ring hollow for many, hoping that a new coach would bring new results. In that sense, Friday was a sobering reminder that the Red Wings’ roster remains the same, and McLellan will be faced with the same challenges Lalonde battled.
In fairness, though, the Red Wings and their new coach were both in a tough spot, as the change out of the Christmas break meant McLellan had only a morning skate to get to know his new players, and for his players to get to know him.
“It’s a lot for one day, a complete change of voice behind the bench,” Ben Chiarot said. “It’s a lot for a game day. But like you saw out there, the energy of the team was up. Maybe how organized, or what we looked like, was out of sorts a bit, which was understandable. But the first thing, the most important thing, is the energy of the team, and the spirit of the team is up. And you can see with that, you can make a lot of things happen.”
Chiarot noted how different things were on the bench with McLellan, particularly in regard to in-game communication.
“I want them to understand who I am,” McLellan said. “And that’s why I’m here. I’m supposed to be trying to help them. Sometimes I had to bark, sometimes they needed a pat on the back, sometimes I had to explain what my language was. We started flipping lines around, I wanted to make sure that some individuals knew they weren’t getting punished because they were maybe moved down a line or something like that. … So, it’s communication the whole time, and it’ll be that way — or at least I hope it’ll be that way — until we settle in and we learn how we want to play.”
McLellan did experiment with different lines and pairs throughout the game, notably splitting up Moritz Seider and Simon Edvinsson after the first period, and trying different forward looks as well. He tried forward Joe Veleno, typically a bottom-six staple so far, on the top line with Larkin and Raymond, in the third period and “thought those legs, the way (Veleno) skates, helped those two.”
These are all indicators of a new coach going through a fact-finding mission — but also possible tells of what to expect from McLellan more broadly, at least in these early stages.
Also telling were his comments on how he’d approach starting to attack those issues defending.
“I think right now, I would call the group kind of mechanical,” he said. “And you can’t play that way. Your systems and your structure allow you to get to places. But then you have to play hockey. You have to rely on instincts.
“It’s like, (if) somebody’s chasing somebody, OK, well now I’ve got to hand them off and get to the middle of the rink. Well, that’s what coaches teach. But if you’re engaged with the player, finish the play. And I see us being mechanical, I see us being tentative, I see us leaving our feet a lot. … We have work to do. We have a road map now. Nobody’s happy about losing. But we’ll get after it tomorrow in practice.”
McLellan likely won’t be telling the players anything they haven’t heard before. He’s not going to reinvent the sport. But he has over 1,100 games of NHL head coaching experience backing him, which may help his messages land better. He may engender more buy-in. He could, very possibly, re-energize the team’s spirit.
But as Friday showed, it won’t happen overnight.
(Photo: Rick Osentoski / Imagn Images)
