Red Wings coach Derek Lalonde is frustrated

The Detroit Red Wings seemingly did everything right during the first 20 minutes of last night's game against the New Jersey Devils at Little Caesars Arena. They generated chances, had several good looks at the net, and held a clear edge in shots. Unfortunately, goaltender Vitek Vanecek held his own and stubbornly refused to allow any rubber get behind him.

But in what has been a theme in recent games, the Red Wings would soon find themselves trailing by multiple goals in short order. A pair of power play goals quickly put them in a hole that they'd be unable to climb back out of; when all was said and done, the Devils departed with a 5-1 win, leaving the Red Wings still with 16 victories on the season - the exact number that they had at this point last year. 

And it was obvious that head coach Derek Lalonde wasn't exactly pleased with what he saw on the ice in terms of the result his postgame remarks.

“This is a winnable game,” he said. “It’s frustrating because, throw out the (Detroit’s) seven overtime games. The 16 wins and the 13 losses, there’s definitely a little theme in there."

“We have to defend. We only give up 8-10 chances, which we did tonight. But we lost the special teams and didn’t create any offense.”

Detroit's total team defense has been leaving a lot to be desired in recent memory, surrendering the first four goals of the game for the third time in their past four. 

“We’re not built like that,” Lalonde said. This was a little bit different. We emphasized a good start today and I thought we got it. Unfortunately we’re still at 0-0 (after the first period)." 

“It’s been a really tough read over the last three games. I think we’ve been outscored 7-0 in the first period but our play was actually pretty good.”

The Red Wings, who trail the Islanders by seven points for the final Wild Card spot in the Eastern Conference (but have three games in hand), are back in action tomorrow night against the Atlantic Division rival Florida Panthers.