Detroit Red Wings head coach Todd McLellan made his feelings known after his team's 5-1 loss to the Montreal Canadiens on Thursday. Following the blowout loss, McLellan put his team on the spot, saying, “The players will say — they probably have already said to you — ‘we can fix this,' When? It’s time. Some of them have been doing it for years. It’s time.”
Following an embarrassing season-opening loss like that, can you blame McLellan? Sure, the Red Wings are young and inexperienced, and teams like this are pretty bad for a while. Still, they have veteran leadership in players like Dylan Larkin, Patrick Kane, James van Riemsdyk (who didn't play), Travis Hamonic, and Ben Chiarot.
Those are the players who need to get their acts together and, through action, help this team bounce back from the debacle that was. And now, McLellan issued them a challenge, because how many times do you hear a player, or players, say what McLellan claimed?
Detroit Red Wings need to take action now to righten about 100 wrongs
There isn't an easy fix here, and McLellan probably knows that. With three rookies and three second-year players, McLellan is way too experienced a coach to know this disaster isn't getting fixed overnight.
But that's not the point. The point is, the Wings, even with so many relatively inexperienced players at the NHL level, are capable of playing better hockey. You can't let a team like the Montreal Canadiens, who are a fringe playoff contender, at best, skate all over your home ice for the greater part of 60 minutes and embarrass you like that.
So there needs to be less talk and more action. Players don't need to dive into long, drawn-out explanations over what went wrong and give the media reassurances that they "will get better." Everybody says that following an embarrassing loss, so it's not breaking any new ground.
Todd McLellan's patience isn't one to try
Todd McLellan isn't the kind of coach who will say you either win or learn. If you're playing for him, either you deliver results, or else he will replace you with someone who will, and he'll cut your ice time. That's the ultimatum he's giving every one of his players: Play like a winner, or go to the back of the line.
And you know what? If the Red Wings want to get better quickly, he's the type of coach who will make that happen. It will be a rough month of October, but don't think for a single second McLellan will ease off the throttle.