Night one of Todd McLellan's tenure as Red Wings head coach wasn't pretty, but it allowed McLellan the chance for an honest appraisal of the team he's taken over

After the Detroit Red Wings lost 5–2 to the Toronto Maple Leafs in Todd McLellan's first game behind the bench, Detroit forward Lucas Raymond, "It's never fun losing 5–2, but it was a different feeling and something to build off of."  It was something of an unusual assessment, considering the familiarity of both the end result and the path to it.  However, after McLellan spoke, it became easier to see why Raymond felt the way he did: the loss served as a diagnostic test for the new head coach, out of which he established a path out of the malaise that has defined the start to the Red Wings' season.

McLellan said that at moments of crisis for any hockey team, there is always a case to be made for focusing on attack or defense as the path out.  In this particular case, McLellan said the path out of the malaise must be paved by defending.  He characterized Detroit's defending as "mechanical," saying, "You can't play that way.  Your systems and your structure allow you to get to places, but then you have to play hockey. You have to rely on instincts...I see us being mechanical, I see us being tentative, I see us leaving our feet a lot...We have work to do. We have a road map now. Nobody's happy about losing, but we'll get after it tomorrow in practice."

So how did night one of the McLellan era feel different?  Because it presented a clearly defined path out of the abyss.  I spoke about that sense in greater detail in the featured video above.

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