The California road trip ain't what it used to be. About a decade ago, a team traveling from the East into the Golden State would have to duel three Cup contenders in quick succession: Los Angeles, Anaheim, and San Jose. But now, as both the Ducks and Sharks slog through a stretched-out rebuild and the Kings haven't won a playoff series since 2014, the trip's most intimidating foe is jet lag. Nevertheless, the Detroit Red Wings still spent a long weekend finding a way to lose all three meetings, dropping themselves into a precarious early-season position that already threatens to extend their postseason drought to nine years.
The Ducks game to open the trip was the most frustrating, as a 3-1 Detroit lead near the end of the second evaporated into a 6-4 defeat. In the back-to-back against the Kings, head coach Derek Lalonde's boys sleepwalked to a 4-1 loss. In San Jose on Monday, the team salvaged one point thanks to an effective power play that helped get the game to overtime, but still left the building as losers on account of No. 1 overall pick Macklin Celebrini's knockout blow at three-on-three.
It was a different young Shark, William Eklund, who picked his team up with a pair of goals to keep pace with the Wings in the game's first half. (The second came off a pretty ugly Cam Talbot botch in net.) But after the talented Red Wings trio of Dylan Larkin, Lucas Raymond, and Alex DeBrincat orchestrated a five-on-four equalizer with two minutes left in the third, Celebrini got to hog the spotlight.
Entering on a line change while San Jose held possession behind their own net, the 18-year-old skated behind Mikael Granlund as the elder Shark brought the puck all the way to the O-zone before dropping it off to the speedy wunderkind on the far left side. Detroit had no hope of stopping him. Patrick Kane was picked by Granlund and could only swipe feebly at the puck. Simon Edvinsson was covering the other half of the ice and was too slow to come over. And DeBrincat, who got the worst of it, whiffed on a poke check while Celebrini maneuvered around him like roadkill. The close-range shot was perfectly placed off Talbot's padding and in.
The Sharks are 6-10-4 and remain defensively compromised, but their fans can seize on a win like this, powered by Eklund and Celebrini, as a omen of better times for the franchise ahead. Red Wings fans, on the other hand, are starting to think about who should coach the team next, as their 7-9-2 record sits above only Pittsburgh and Montreal in the East.
The limp start isn't really on Lalonde. Detroit's roster took a clear step backward after they lost a close fight for the eighth seed last spring. The priority this summer was signing cornerstones Moritz Seider and Lucas Raymond to long-term extensions, and in doing so while remaining under the cap the Wings had to shed assets. As significant veteran contracts from GM Steve Yzerman like Andrew Copp, J.T. Compher, and Ben Chiarot continue to hinder the team, the Wings were banking on either a leap in goalie effectiveness or some exciting player development just to stay afloat. On the first front, Talbot's been solid but still not enough. As far as the youngsters go, the 21-year-old defenseman Edvinsson is a bright spot as a big man with skill who knows how to use his body to his advantage, but even his task has been merely to plug the hole left by Shayne Gostisbehere's exit.
Everything the Red Wings do right now feels like bailing buckets of water out of a leaky rowboat. And I suppose, when a team's situation gets this grim, that means time's up on the coach. Even if Lalonde gets swapped for some other guy in a suit, however, Detroit's problems aren't going away. This is simply not a good enough lineup to hang with the rest of the division. It couldn't even handle California.
