Detroit Red Wings react after 2-1 loss to Colorado Avalanche
Detroit Red Wings JT Compher, Moritz Seider & Derek Lalonde, Dec. 7, 2024 in Detroit.
Detroit Red Wings coach Derek Lalonde had a suggestion for the reporters who cover his team daily.
“You can all save yourself some time and just copy and paste the same writeup you’ve had the last five games,” he said after the Wings lost Saturday at Little Caesars Arena, 2-1, to the Colorado Avalanche. “Some positives. We’ll probably take our five-on-five game tonight against a team like that. Hold them to two goals. Probably outchanced them fairly good. Just got to do more to flip some of these games.”
The Wings (10–13–4) have lost five straight games by one goal, and their past seven losses have been by that margin. They sit second from the bottom in the Eastern Conference, and the frustration is evident.
SATURDAY NIGHT: Red Wings’ offense struggles again in 2-1 loss to Avalanche
“I mean, no one is happy in the locker room. Why should we?” defenseman Moritz Seider said. “We’re losing games that are winnable and we just can’t find ways to get it done. That’s really frustrating. We shouldn’t be lying to ourselves. We need to be better. It shouldn’t drag us down, though. We come to the rink with a big smile tomorrow, get ready to work, play two opponents that are really close and hopefully get four points and get back with a little bit of swagger.”
One game at a time: First, the Wings head back on the road Monday to take on the Sabres in Buffalo, New York. They do so with just two points banked in their past five outings. They had a chance to win in Ottawa but lost, 2-1; they had a chance to win in Boston, but lost, 3-2 in overtime. They had a chance to win Saturday, getting a boost with Lucas Raymond’s goal late in the second period that made it 2-1, only to come out in the third and register only one shot on net the first 15 or so minutes, while the Avs racked up 10.
“The last 10 minutes in the second, we found another gear,” Seider said. “We kept the Iines rolling and scored a great goal. But then we just couldn’t really capitalize in the third. Got away from the game a little bit. Not good enough on the breakouts, a lot of bad decisions.
“Very frustrating once again. You do a lot of good things but not over a span of 60 minutes, and that will cost you against a really good team. We came out in the third with not nearly enough jump as we had before. Couldn’t really sustain any kind of O-zone time, get not dangerous chances, didn’t really force them into uncomfortable situations.”
Pullling goalie Ville Husso with 2:30 to play helped the Wings enough to get eight shots on net the final few minutes, but it was too little, too late.
“We had some wall turnovers and we had some breakouts where we couldn’t get our game going,” Lalonde said. “That’s the point where, if we could have rolled our second into our third, I think we find that goal. But we had some wall battles lost, they’re heavy on some sticks, we had some turnovers. It hurt us in zone time and getting push.
“Our margin of effort is extremely thin right now. We can’t lose moments in the game and there were some moments in the third we just lost some shifts and we couldn’t get things rolling.”
J.T. Compher, a second-line player who has three goals on the season and none since Oct. 27, said the Wings “have to stick together. A lot of frustrated guys in the room and it’s got to be our group of guys to find our way out of it.”
Seider said the Wings maybe need to “cheer each other on. Work a little bit harder in practice. Find a little bit of confidence and just find a good reason why we want to beat teams and be on the winning side. That has to come from us. Nobody else can do that for us.”
Lalonde pointed to the stretch last season when the Wings lost seven straight games in regulation from Feb. 29-March 14, during which they were outscored, 36-12. This stretch hasn’t been like that: Going back 10 games, they’ve been outscored, 28-25.
“We had that stretch last year, and we were bad,” Lalonde said. “We earned that losing streak. This feels a little different, but the bottom line is, we have to do more to flip these games. I think they’re playing some pretty responsible hockey. But we have to do a little more offensively. Just a little frustration that it’s not going on our way.”
