The Detroit Red Wings are in an early-season crisis.
What else can you conclude after they lost to the lowly San Jose Sharks in overtime Monday night, claiming a point but falling to 0-3 on their West Coast swing?
The loss dropped the Red Wings’ record on the season to 7-9-2, a .444 winning percentage tied for sixth-worst in the league. And 18 games in, that’s no longer just an early-season lull.
It’s certainly not just a matter of a tough schedule, as Anaheim and San Jose both finished in the NHL’s bottom three last season and could easily do so again. The Red Wings lost to both teams while giving up a combined 11 goals — and 15 when including their lopsided 4-1 loss to the Los Angeles Kings.
More than a month into the season, this is reality for the Red Wings. And it is ugly.
So, where do they go from here? That’s where it gets complicated.
Obviously, the public discourse is most focused right now on head coach Derek Lalonde. This is the time of year when NHL coaching changes start happening — the first one last season came Nov. 12 — and Lalonde is as vulnerable as anyone in the league right now as a third-year head coach whose team has struggled mightily to find an early-season rhythm.
I don’t know what general manager Steve Yzerman is thinking about Lalonde right now — I don’t think anyone does — but the team’s performance out West certainly doesn’t help his cause.
Execution continues to be an issue for Detroit, and the Sharks’ third goal saw Tyler Toffoli work himself open in the slot in the final minute of the second period. Their fourth saw Luke Kunin simply beat his man, J.T. Compher, up ice for a clean look on goaltender Cam Talbot. Those have to be frustrating goals for Lalonde to see from the bench — and for his general manager to see, too.
Yzerman has to know by now, though, that the roster he assembled is a massive part of the Red Wings’ problem — perhaps not compared to the Sharks’ and Ducks’ lineups, but certainly on a broader level.
The Red Wings wanted to improve their team defense going into the offseason, and yet Yzerman did very little to foster that goal. He was cap-strapped, to be sure, but the one new defenseman he brought in, Erik Gustafsson, has been arguably the team’s least-trusted regular defender through 18 games. Yzerman did manage to find $4.75 million for a scoring forward in Vladimir Tarasenko, only for Tarasenko to start the season with just seven points in 17 games.
Yzerman also signed a new defensive forward in Tyler Motte, but Motte has only played in six games and was scratched on Monday night. And he added a goalie, Talbot, who had been quite good for most of the season before a forgettable performance Monday night. His worst moment was the Sharks’ second goal, a casual shot from distance that went off his glove and in — but even then, pointing the blame at Talbot would be far too convenient. He has had to bail the Red Wings out on plenty of occasions in this young season.
Instead, the Red Wings are left with something much more concerning: a roster that just looks poorly conceived.
Detroit has a top six that skews small and defensively limited, and a bottom six that struggles to produce. And frankly, the top six isn’t producing enough at five-on-five either. It has a top defense pair that is talented but still makes its share of mistakes, a second pair that is playing above its ideal spot in the lineup, and a third pair the staff simply doesn’t seem to trust. There is no clear identity to speak of, besides perhaps a power play that — to its credit — ranks third in the NHL.
Perhaps some of those issues point to a lack of synchronization between Yzerman and his coach, but realistically, this lineup would be a problem for any coach to try and manage.
So, yes, Detroit is deep enough into the season where Lalonde’s future is a real conversation. But the Red Wings’ problems run much deeper, and few will solve themselves organically.
The Red Wings have six players whose contracts are up at the end of this season: Motte, Patrick Kane, Christian Fischer, Jeff Petry, Ville Husso and Alex Lyon. While that’s a pathway to freeing up some cap space this summer, many of Detroit’s larger cap commitments remain. They owe Compher and Andrew Copp a combined $10.725 million for at least the next two seasons (and Compher for three). Ben Chiarot and Justin Holl each have a year left on the blue line. So does Gustafsson. And so does Tarasenko.
That means any meaningful shakeup to this group will have to come from creative or bold decisions by Yzerman and his front office. And with the way things have gone the last few summers, it’s fair to question whether Detroit can continue to rely on the exact same process that has gotten it into this spot.
The Red Wings’ rebuild has always been on a more nebulous timeline than anyone outside of Detroit’s front office would like, but no matter what that timeline is, patience on its deliverance appears to have run out.
Right now, there are still 64 games to play, and any hopes of the playoffs are now dwarfed by the more urgent need to simply stop the bleeding. In 2021-22, the team finished with 74 points under Jeff Blashill. As of Tuesday, they’re on pace for 73.
It is possible Detroit could find a spark with a coaching change, or with some kind of trade — but at this point, such a move can’t just be predicated on saving this dire-looking season. And sure, perhaps the Red Wings will finally be ready to respond to this series of should-be wake-up calls when they get back home, with five of their next six games in Detroit.
But right now, the whole thing just looks like a mess. And there’s no shortage of blame to go around.
(Top photo of J.T. Compher: Jayne Kamin-Oncea / Imagn Images)
