| Detroit Free Press
Luke Glendening: Detroit Red Wings lack grit, fortittude
Red Wings alternate captain Luke Glendening, Feb. 3, 2021.
Helene St. James, Detroit Free Press
If the Detroit Red Wings take a collective look in the mirror, they will see a team that hasn’t made good on the enthusiasm with which it began the season.
Their winless streak grew to seven with Wednesday’s 5-1 loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning at Amalie Arena, and what little confidence the Wings earned after playing better defensively over the weekend has dissipated.
“We’re not happy with the result,” Glendening said. “We’re not happy with the process. We didn’t take a step in the right direction. We have to continue to go to work and get better. In a short season, especially, when you go on slides like this it makes it tough.
“We have to have some fortitude, some grit in this room, and get back to it.”
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The defending Stanley Cup champions, who the Wings play again Friday, are a talent superpower. But the Wings gifted them goals: Victor Hedman had no one defending him when he made it 1-0; neither did Anthony Cirelli, nor Ryan McDonagh on their goals. That was just in the first five minutes.
“It’s hard to explain,” coach Jeff Blashill said. “It was a terrible start. They came out ready to play and we didn’t come out ready to play. Ultimately, that’s my responsibility. They were on top of us, they were skating, they were winning battles and we weren’t. Then you get down 3-0 — the game is not over by any stretch, but you have dug yourself a huge hole. Against this team, you can’t dig yourself a 3-0 hole.”
On the fourth goal, Marc Staal stopped chasing Steven Stamkos around the back of the net and slid out front. Stamkos fired a puck that hit Staal’s skate and bounced to Brayden Point.
That was followed, finally, by Anthony Mantha scoring a goal that demonstrates what a powerful skater he is when he plays like he’s capable, pouncing on a loose puck and striding up ice. The Wings need to see more of that from Mantha if this season is to be salvaged.
They need to see more from pretty much everybody.
“It’s frustrating,” Glendening said. “As a group we have to take a look in the mirror and ask ourselves who we are and what we are doing and how we are helping this team. I’ve got to do a better job, we all have to do a better job of doing our jobs and getting it done.”
[ Mantha says he needs to get his game up to speed ]
There was about a 20-minute gap — longer than normal — between the end of the game and the first postgame video interview.
“We’ve talked a lot about it as a group over the past six or seven games, about what we need to do,” Glendening said. “Those are private conversations. Every guy in here is frustrated with the way we have been playing and sometimes the effort we have been giving.”
The Wings don’t have the superstars to match guys like Steven Stamkos and Victor Hedman, but not giving at least a decent effort is tough to excuse — and to explain.
“I don’t have the answer to that,” Blashill said. “If I did, we would have played better. We go out every day, we practice and we try to get better and come out the next day and try to get better. For whatever reason, we got on our heels early and they pushed and they scored every time we gave them a chance.”
Friday brings a rematch, in which Filip Zadina is expected to be available after missing two weeks because of COVID-19 protocol. Four players returned from a stay in quarantine Wednesday: Forwards Adam Erne, Robby Fabbri and Sam Gagner and defenseman Jon Merrill. Fabbri and Erne had not played since Jan. 16 and had gone through one practice; Gagner and Merrill last played Jan. 19 and didn’t even get a morning skate.
“It was a concern inserting all four guys,” Blashill said. “It’s hard to get game-ready when haven’t practiced in multiple weeks. On the other side, we hadn’t won in a while, so why wouldn’t you put them in? But I knew it was a hard ask to have one-fifth of your lineup not practiced in two weeks.”
Merrill replaced Danny DeKeyser, who Blashill said has been “playing on one leg most of the year, trying to recover, and it has been a hard grind.” The organization worried about DeKeyser’s effectiveness coming into the season because he underwent back surgery in Oct. 2019 and had not played hockey in more than a year.
The Wings came into the season confident they could distance themselves from last year’s last-place finish because of better depth. It didn’t even last a week before the pandemic took out five players. Now the Wings have to find a way to regain some kind of foothold, and show some fortitude.
Jeff Blashill: Why weren’t Detroit Red Wings ready to play at Tampa Bay
Red Wings coach Jeff Blashill, Feb. 3, 2021.
Helene St. James, Detroit Free Press
Contact Helene St. James at hstjames@freepress.com. Follow her on Twitter @helenestjames. Read more on the Detroit Red Wings and sign up for our Red Wings newsletter. Her book, The Big 50: The Detroit Red Wings is available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Triumph Books. Personalized copies available via her e-mail.