Saturday night the Wings ended up squandering a 3 goal lead in the third period to lose 5-4 in the shootout to the Phoenix Coyotes, a team that had previously lost five straight games.
Among those who weren’t happy was the head coach Mike Babcock.
“There’s a way to play to be successful, we know it,” Babcock said. “But until we get our head around doing it, we’re not going anywhere.
“There gets to be a point in your season where you got to decide, if you think you’re a championship-caliber team, that there’s a right way to play. Unless you get 23 guys doing it the same way and wanting to do it, nothing’s going to happen.”
According to Ansar Khan of Mlive.com, before the Wings gave up the three goal lead Babcock was becoming more and more frustrated with the way his team was playing. Getting outworked, spending a lot of time in the offensive zone, trying to make to many risky plays at the blue line was a recipe for disaster.
“We’ve been around enough winning that every guy in this room understands,” Babcock said. “But obviously I got to do a much better job to get them all to do it, because we’re not doing it.”
Captain Nicklas Lidstrom agreed with Babcock’s observations and criticisms with the team.
“I don’t think we let up, it’s just a matter of making mental mistakes,” Lidstrom said. “We’re shooting ourselves in the foot by trying to be too creative late in games when we have the lead.”
Khan writes however that Zetterberg believes that had the team won, the way they play wouldn’t have been an issue…
“It’s easy to say we were fancy when we’re losing,” Zetterberg said. “If we’re winning the game, we’re playing well, we’re holding the puck. We shouldn’t lose it. It’s easy to focus on the negative.”
Well it’s easy to focus on the negative in this game because they LOST A THREE GOAL LEAD IN THE THIRD PERIOD! There are no excuses for that to happen, especially against a team that just lost five straight games!
This was the same issue the other night against Los Angeles.
The Wings often times get out to leads, fall asleep and get sloppy.
If Zetterberg and any other Wings have that same thinking about their play going into the playoffs, then it will be a very short post season.
Source: Mlive.com
