Detroit Red Wings lose Todd McLellan debut, 5-2, to Toronto Maple Leafs

On By Littum

game

Todd McLellan’s first message to the Detroit Red Wings was to play harder, faster and smarter.

Betterhowever, remains elusive. Boos, plenty.

For the second straight game, the Wings were booed on home ice, and their performance Friday against the Toronto Maple Leafs without Auston Matthews wasn’t much better than the one that preceded the Christmas break. It was the fans in blue and white who cheered at Little Caesars Arena as their Leafs beat the Wings 5-2.

It was the first game since head coach Derek Lalonde was fired, and McLellan was brought in in the hope that he can turn the tables. In fairness, he had only been on the job for one day. But it looked bad: four straight losses now, five games in a row giving up at least four goals. With the Buffalo Sabers’ win on Friday, the Wings (13-18-4) are just percentage points off the bottom of the Eastern Conference.

Mitch Marner had a natural hat trick that helped chase goaltender Cam Talbot after two periods and let Alex Lyon clean up. Lucas Raymond converted on a power play and Simon Edvinsson also scored in the third period as the Wings finally showed some energy.

FIRST WORD: Red Wings new coach Todd McLellan’s message to the team: Play harder, faster, smarter

This is what Todd McLellan’s first lineup looked like

The former Wings assistant’s first lineup looked familiar, which made sense. He had a morning of skating to get familiar with the players. So he used the same forward lines that Lalonde did in Monday’s loss to St. Louis Blues, keeping Dylan Larkin with Lucas Raymond and Vladimir Tarasenko, at least to start the game. Defensively, the Wings benefited from the returns of defensemen Edvinsson and Ben Chiarot, who had been sidelined with upper-body injuries. Edvinsson started the game with Moritz Seider, but Chiarot was moved to that spot and Edvinsson played with Jeff Petry.

This is what the start looked like

It took less than three minutes for the Leafs to build a lead, with David Kampf scoring on a net-front scramble. Marner doubled that lead at 8:16. When John Tavares’ first pass to Marner ended up with the shot blocked, Tavares grabbed the loose puck and executed a blind pass between his own legs, where he knew Marner would be, in the left circle; this time the shot sank into Detroit’s net. As has been the Wings’ habit, the penalty kill also coughed up one in the final minute to Marner, leaving the Wings with a three-goal deficit.

What did the answer look like?

When Marner completed his natural hat trick 16:23 into the second period, the Wings had registered just three shots on net in that span. So not much better than the three-shot affair in the first period of the Blues game on Monday. There was a lot of running around, but the disruption was still there, with players missing passes and out of position. At least Leafs fans enjoyed the experience; there were handfuls of hats landing on the ice, a testament to how well Leafs fans travel. They cheered again at the last second when Nicholas Robertson made the Wings pay for Petry’s failure to clear the puck.

Contact Helene St. James on [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter @helenestjames.

Read more about the Detroit Red Wings and sign up for our Red Wings newsletter. Her latest book, “The Franchise: Detroit Red WingsA Curated History of the Red Wings,” published October 2024. Her books, “On the Clock: Behind the Scenes with the Detroit Red Wings at the NHL Draft” and “The Big 50: The Men and Moments that made the Detroit Red Wings ” are available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Triumph Books. Personal copies available via her email.