Todd McLellan Sends Blunt Message After Red Wings’ Costly Mistakes

The Red Wings paid the price against the Blues

Detroit Red Wings goaltender John Gibson makes a save Mandatory Credit: Rick Osentoski-Imagn Images | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

It's a terrible feeling when the Detroit Red Wings give up winnable games. 

Mistakes and lack of execution can become a team's Achilles ' heel.

Red Wings Were Sloppy and Lacked Execution

Detroit Red Wings left wing Lucas Raymond controls the puck Mandatory Credit: Sergei Belski-Imagn Images | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

The way Detroit played hockey is not what they were about on Saturday night against the St. Louis Blues. There's history between both teams. The Red Wings can't afford to lose a game like the one they did yesterday.

Their performance was not up to their standard. Lucas Raymond said this himself during the post-game interview.

"I thought that was far from our standard," Raymond said. "What we worked hard to get to as a team. It was far from good enough."

The Red Wings certainly weren't good enough, and it cost them the game. Keegan Kolesar scored his first goal as a Red Wing. It's a bittersweet night for him because it didn't bring a win. The moment could have been more special for him. Kolesar didn't flaunt or show that he cared about his individual success over the team. Besides, that's not what the Red Wings are all about.

Kolesar wanted this team to win. His facial expression said it all about how disappointed he was that the Red Wings did not win the game. It didn't come down to just one player. The team lost the game as a unit.

"It's nice, but a defeat like that really just glues the rest of the day," Kolesar said.

It's one of the toughest losses of the season. Games like this can make or break the team for the rest of the season. It may be early in the season, but sometimes a loss like this needs to happen for a team to take a hard look in the mirror. See what they need to fix. Who should be in what line? What adjustments to make to go forward? 

As we start the new month, the Red Wings must find a way to bounce back and avoid losing these kinds of games if they want to compete for bigger goals. 

"We got sloppy," coach Todd McLellan said. "You've heard me use the word checking. Those checking skills. I think the intent was still there, but the execution wasn't. We paid the price."

The sloppiness began in the second period, according to what McLellan saw from the bench.

"There were some turnovers in the middle of the period," McLellan said. "We got stalled coming through the neutral zone, not because of what they were doing. It was on our tape, and it started to come back our way."

The Red Wings finished October with a 6-8 record. They will travel to Florida to take on the Panthers on Tuesday night.