Larkin Blasts Red Wings After Allowing 11 Goals vs Penguins

The Detroit Red Wings are not a very good team. That comes with the territory when rebuilding and growing pains will be part of the process until a young hockey club can see its prospects grow into legit NHL players and veterans can round out the core and help produce positive results. All that said, 11 goals against in one game is not ideal. When you factor in the fact that the Red Wings have given up 71 goals in their last 14 games, it looks even worse. The team is averaging more than five goals against per game in the past month worth of game action.

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Things are getting to the point where there are many questions now about how head coach Jeff Blashill remains the head coach of the Red Wings after this season.

It’s not a matter of how many games the Red Wings can win. The reality is, they expect to lose games. That said, Detroit didn’t just lose on Sunday; they let the Penguins score 11 goals while only scoring twice themselves. This was never a contest and the team is absolutely at the lowest point it has been in some time.

“It’s not acceptable,” Red Wings Dylan Larkin said after the game. He added, “We just can’t show up like that and not be prepared.” He added, “It’s going to get worse and we’re going to get embarrassed every night. We’ve got a couple of days here to figure it out. We just can’t show up like that and not be prepared or have the will to compete and fight back.”

“It’s not acceptable,” Red Wings Dylan Larkin said after the 11-2 loss to the Penguins.

He said the players, coaches, and training staff are all in it together. Full postgame press conference: pic.twitter.com/5u0wHMAXpH

— Brad Galli (@BradGalli) March 28, 2022

When asked if there was any sort of disconnect between the players and coaching staff, Larkin responded, “We’re all in this together.” He noted, there are a lot of young players on this Red Wings team that haven’t been in this situation before and he doesn’t want them to keep having to go through these kinds of experiences. Saying the team needs to decide what they’re out there to play for, “It starts with the players.”

What Change Is Coming?

Larkin mentions that change will have to come, but he doesn’t say that it needs to come in terms of a new coach. He’s saying the change needs to be in the mentality of the players and changing the way they approach games. But, could a bigger decisions be coming?

At this point, few would be shocked if Blashill doesn’t get another season to put his fingerprints on this team. The Red Wings continue to struggle and games like this have to tell GM Steve Yzerman that maybe the voice directing the players is the wrong one.

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