Detroit Red Wings: How much is Jeff Blashill to blame?

Breathe Hockeytown. Breathe.

Two very bad losses, after what felt like some positive momentum, has us questioning the coaching staff. The Detroit Red Wings hung with Carolina and Columbus, and entered the two-game set with Chicago 2-2 while the Hawks were winless. By the end of Sunday’s game, Detroit was looking up from a two-game 10-3 crater. Giving up so many goals was one thing. How they did it was another. Issues from last season were back with a vengeance.

Worse, there were mistakes made during the game that just reeked of an inability to get the job done. Until the 5 on 3 power play goal, this team looked listless and lost. From Frans Nielsen whiffing on potential clears, to Anthony Mantha skating around aimlessly, or just poor coverage altogether. The Red Wings looked like an utter mess.

So it begs the question: How much of this is on Jeff Blashill? The Twitter poll below was posted Saturday, and the numbers probably would have been higher had it been after the game Sunday:

I consider myself an optimist but also a realist. I’ve felt that Blash was left holding the bag after Mike Babcock bolted and Ken Holland stocked the roster with role players while paying them like all-stars. Like Yzerman said before, it’s not fair to judge Blash on win/losses. Instead it’s about progress for the team.

The last two games felt like an enormous step backward. Filip Zadina and Robby Fabbri being out have not helped matters, but they shouldn’t have been outscored 10-3 by a rebuilding Chicago team. Worse, the Red Wings cannot score five on five unless it’s Dylan Larkin or Bobby Ryan. This is a massive problem. And at some point, though the roster is lacking, good coaching finds ways to exploit the opponent and put guys in the right spot to win.

I didn’t feel like that happened often on Friday or Sunday.

This weekend felt more like with Filip Zadina out, everyone threw their hands up in frustration.

If you watch all three of Suter’s goals, it’s cringeworthy just how bad the Red Wings look on each of them. There’s no one covering Suter on his first goal, leaving him untouched to bank home the rebound. On the second, Nielsen just fumbles away at the puck, giving it up and then away for another goal. And then on the clincher, Suter blows past a stumbling Valtteri Filppula and roofs it

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as Staal drops to take away the passing lane.

For what I wrote about their confidence growing, I cited that they appeared mentally tougher when facing adversity, and they did through four games. But this weekend pumped the brakes on that significantly. This looked like last year all over again. Couple that with core players like Mantha, who was benched for a few shifts in the third after brutally bad coverage on the fourth Chicago goal, and I don’t know that I can disagree with the 63% who said it’s time to move on.

Yzerman isn’t one to make snap decisions. Heck, he let Guy Bouchard show he couldn’t turn it around in 2013 before pulling the plug. And that was a coach he hired and got Tampa Bay within a game of the Stanley Cup Final in 2011.

The two games with Dallas will be telling. If we see a repeat pattern, the question of a coaching change will most likely shift from “if” to “when.”