Wow, you couldn’t have asked for a more picture-perfect start to the Todd McLellan era if you’re a Red Wings fan. Seven straight wins were a great way to reignite what had been an increasingly dormant team, and eight wins in the first 10 games of the era was what this team needed to at least remotely jump back into contender mode.
Throughout this period, the Red Wings went 8-2-0, with 41 goals scored and just 30 allowed. Break those latter two numbers down by the game, and you get 4.1 goals for compared to 3.0 against, and it would have been tough for even the league’s best teams to hang with the Wings.
Now, they’ve dropped three straight and are 0-2-1 in that span. So, was it just beginner’s luck for Todd McLellan, or did the Wings just hit a snag? I mean, there’s hardly a team out there that doesn’t have at least one three-game losing streak, but what concerns me more is how the Wings have scored three goals in as many games.
To put it bluntly, they’ve been awful throughout this three-game losing streak, allowing opponents to outscore them 11-3. Let’s again take averages, and the Wings are allowing 3.66 goals per game while putting up just one in each outing, themselves.
Todd McLellan needs to figure out why the Red Wings scoring has stalled
Throughout most of the 2024-25 season, scoring’s been hard for the Red Wings to come by, even if they seemed to have snapped out of that slump during the early days of the McLellan era. What’s even more startling about this current losing streak are these numbers:
- 57.8 Corsi For Percentage
- 102 shots on goal for
- 73 shots on goal allowed
These numbers tell me that the Wings should still be a high-octane unit, and there’s no way they can let a team like the Flyers hold them to one goal. Yeah, you can make the case for the Tampa Bay Lightning and the Dallas Stars, but when you score once against the Flyers, something’s not right.
So, to answer the question shared in this headline, it’ll be beginner’s luck for Todd McLellan if he can’t figure out a way to fix the Red Wings recent scoring woes. But if he cracks the code, the Wings new coach will have passed his first of what will be many litmus tests.
He’ll have a chance to do just that on Thursday night when the Red Wings face the Montreal Canadiens. One of the more deceptive teams out there this season, and one that could find itself in the postseason if they stay consistent.