The Detroit Red Wings started off the season great by winning eight of their first 11 games. However, since then, they have struggled with only five wins in their last 15 games.
The struggles as of late feel like a huge missed opportunity for a team fighting to get back to the playoffs. This season, the Eastern Conference has been defined by parity as only 10 points separate the Tampa Bay Lightning, who are first in the conference, and the Buffalo Sabres, who were in last place entering the games on Monday.
Detroit Red Wings are wasting time trying to find their identity
After practice on Monday, head coach Todd McLellan was asked if he felt the team had an established identity or was still looking for it after some players said last week that the Red Wings need to play to their identity.
"I think we are more in the second part. We're still trying to look for it. Early in the year, I talked about identity and pace," McLellan said. "I do believe we can be a quick, fast team that can get on top of others offensively and defensively. Some nights we really bring it, other nights we struggle with it but the rest of our game will come from that."
"We create a lot of chances. We don't quite score on enough of them but we give up enough that we're getting scored on and that is why we're not winning. So, we gotta fix that."
The Red Wings have to fix it quickly because they are heading in the wrong direction, as they are 0-3-1 in their last four games. On Saturday, they took a big step towards playing better hockey and pushing the Boston Bruins to a shootout, but came up short in the shootout.
It will be interesting to see how they respond to that loss because they are once again playing the Boston Bruins on Tuesday. Can they build on that performance, which was a strong defensive performance after limiting them to 19 shots on goal, and get their offense going a little earlier in the game?
The Red Wings have a tough stretch of games after Tuesday night as they are on the road for six straight games. The good news is that a win streak here gets them right back in the race for the division. However, if they can't find their identity before this road trip, they could find themselves closer to Buffalo than Tampa.