During locker room clean-out day, Red Wings defenseman Moritz Seider addressed the frustrated reaction of fans during the team’s final home game this past Saturday evening, a loss that confirmed Detroit’s fate of missing the playoffs.
Friday morning was locker room cleanout day at Little Caesars Arena, marking the 10th consecutive season in which the Detroit Red Wings failed to punch their ticket to the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
Although they were in as ideal a position as they could imagine just three months ago in January, they unraveled down the stretch - much as they had in each of the previous two seasons leading into their centennial campaign of 2025–26.
Over the final several weeks, there were repeated references to “outside noise” creeping into the locker room and affecting the players’ psyches.
There was plenty of noise—albeit the negative kind—as the clock ticked down last Saturday evening during Detroit’s 5–3 loss to the New Jersey Devils on home ice, a defeat that sealed their fate of missing the playoffs.
Frustrated fans rained down heavy boos as time expired in regulation, and continued as players solemnly raised their sticks in salute to those who remained.
For defenseman Moritz Seider, who has now played five full 82-game seasons without a playoff appearance, the fans’ reaction was justified.
“Obviously, nobody wants to get booed, but I feel like if that's what the fans thought was right to do, I think it's their right to do so,” Seider said. “We didn't perform to our standard, and we gotta live with reality.
Obviously, that was a hard point; you never want to get booed off the ice. But, obviously, we just didn't play enough. It was the most important game, and we didn't show up. I think they deserve to show their emotions too."
Following Detroit’s 6–3 win earlier that week over the Philadelphia Flyers to keep their faint playoff hopes alive, Moritz Seider quipped that the players “don’t really care” what the media had to say about them, but admitted Friday that in today’s world, where social media saturates nearly every aspect of daily life, it’s difficult not to notice some of the things being written and said in the media.
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“It's hard not to read articles and news because we live in a time where social media dominates our daily life, so I think it's kind of normal," Seider said. "But, yeah, I don't think it was a big factor in our locker room, to be honest. I think it's more (about) protecting ourselves; we have to be like a brotherhood to each other. And if there are things you can say to the media to defend one of your teammates, I think that's the right thing to do."
"Because when you read articles, sometimes it feels like people are against you, and that's where we've gotta come even closer together and maybe fuel that into motivation on the ice," Seider said. "If that helps us get somewhere, I think everybody is doing their job.”
Seider completed perhaps his finest season as an NHL pro, reaching new career-highs in goals, assists, points, ice time, and plus/minus.
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