The Detroit Red Wings have an immediate chance to distance themselves from Saturday’s inept performance and salvage their first 10-game segment of the season.
Win their next game, Monday at the New York Islanders, and the Wings (5-3-1) will be a respectable 6-3-1, banking 13 of 20 possible points. Lose a second straight game in regulation, and 5-4-1 looks a whole lot worse.
“This is where the maturity in the room has to step up and right the ship,” veteran forward Andrew Copp said after the Wings were bested, 4-1, by the Bruins in Boston, extending a winless skid to three games. “We can’t let this go on for too long. Take 10-game segments at a time, there’s a big difference between 6-3-1 and 5-4-1: 6-3-1 puts you in the playoffs, 5-4-1 says you’re on your couch. You can’t let losses stack up.”
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Saturday’s outing against the Atlantic Division-leading Bruins stood out for poorly the Wings played, as if they were intimidated.
“The first period wasn’t good at all, we were losing puck battles, and them outcompeting us in general,” Joe Veleno said.
It was such a contrast from the first eight games: The Wings lost the season opener at the New Jersey Devils because Jack Hughes took over the game, then the power play was a huge spark during a five-game winning streak. The overtime loss to the Seattle Kraken came down to two late penalties. Maybe energy was a bit of a problem in the 4-1 loss Thursday to the Winnipeg Jets, but it wasn’t entirely missing, as it was for 45 minutes against the Bruins, until Veleno provided a spark with his fifth goal of the season.
“Joe’s got a little energy going and confidence, which is a really good sign for us,” Wings coach Derek Lalonde said.
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Ville Husso kept the score at 2-0 going into the third period, which gave his team a chance; that’s another good sign.
The Wings settled on an optional practice Sunday in New York, with the coaching staff prioritizing rest and recuperation in an effort to spark a victory at UBS Arena (7:30 p.m., ESPN+). The Islanders (4-2-1), like the Bruins, are a team that made the playoffs last spring, and are likely to do so again this season. The Wings are trying to end a seven-year playoff drought, and Lalonde has talked about needing to “reel in” the teams that project to be playoff-bound.
“The narrative that some of these top teams are going to come back to the pack, I don’t see it,” Lalonde said. “So it’s going to be us — we need to find a way to be better in these type of games, find a way to get points.”
Contact Helene St. James at hstjames@freepress.com. Follow her @helenestjames.
Read more on the Detroit Red Wings and sign up for our Red Wings newsletter. Her latest book, “On the Clock: Behind the Scenes with the Detroit Red Wings at the NHL Draft,” is available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Triumph Books. Personalized copies available via her e-mail.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Detroit Red Wings ‘maturity’ must show up to nip losing skid
