Detroit Red Wings Had No Choice But to Move on from Derek Lalonde
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The Detroit Red Wings made a coaching change on Thursday as GM Steve Yzerman fired head coach Derek Lalonde and replaced him with Todd McLellan.

This move should not come as any surprise. There were rumblings heading into the season about the job security of Derek Lalonde. This was a similar situation to Luke Richardson in Chicago. While both Lalonde and Richardson are good coaches, and maybe better assistants, the targets were on their backs once both the Red Wings and Blackhawks got off to slow starts.

More the Red Wings because of the expectations and missing the playoffs last season because of tiebreakers. Chicago should have been better than they were and the coaching bump helped the Blackhawks.

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Meanwhile, the Red Wings have gotten worse this season. Everyone expected them to take the next step. Detroit was supposed to be competing for a playoff spot this season. However, they took a step back sitting near the bottom of the Eastern Conference with the Buffalo Sabres.

The final straw for Derek Lalonde in Detroit was the three-game losing streak the Red Wings went on heading into the holiday break. Along with the three-game losing streak, there were other factors that went into this decision as Frank Seravalli of Daily Faceoff explained.

NHLRumors.com Transcriptions

Seravalli: “Let’s start with breaking down how we arrived at this point for Lalonde and the Red Wings. Well, they lost three straight heading into the holiday break, which included a three day hiatus from the rink. December 24th, 25th, and 26th, facilities are closed, so a three game losing streak, coupled with the Red Wings holding up 15th place in the Eastern Conference, they’ve scored the fewest goals in the East. They also have the worst goal differential at the holiday break in the East in a year in which the Red Wings were expected to take a bit of a step forward.

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This year, they should have been in competition with the Buffalo Sabers, who are one of the teams that are right below them in the standings, but also the Ottawa Senators, who have found their way in a playoff spot so far this year, increased expectations, decreased results, and that kind of explains what the Lalonde’s tenure was like, for the most part, just hovering a little bit over a .500 points percentage in a year, again, in which the Red Wings made some additional changes. They brought back Patrick Kane. This is a team that should have taken a step forward with some of their younger players.

So what’s going to be really interesting to watch is Todd McLellan coming in. Can his structure, certainly a very disciplined forecheck that was in place in Los Angeles? Maybe the players didn’t love it, but they saw results, and maybe that will help prop up this Red Wings fefense corps, which is really quite thin.

But it kind of felt like this coaching change could be seen from a mile away. Everyone had wondered, what exactly is Steve Yzerman up to? He hadn’t been very active on the trade front. The best that we can tell beyond that, this team seemed to be floundering a bit. You look at certainly the last handful of games heading into the holiday break, they seem to be pretty lifeless.

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So perhaps McLellan will come in and give this team the same coaching bump that we seen so far this year from Joe Sacco and the Boston Bruins have enjoyed. Also Jim Montgomery and the work that he’s done with the St Louis Blues.

So the coaching changes have been good. You saw that as well for another flailing team, the Chicago Blackhawks with Anders Sorensen just provides some fresh perspective, new life as well.

Again the Red Wings were supposed to be better, but Derek Lalonde similar to Richardson in Chicago was never going to be the guy to get this team over the hump. Let’s see what Todd McLellan can do now with this group.

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