Red Wings were skating in mud, better find their legs fast

DETROIT – Detroit Red Wings coach Todd McLellan thought his team was well-rested with two days off between games and would be energetic on Tuesday.

Instead, they had no legs, spending too much time bottled up in their own zone, unable to generate much attack, losing 2-1 to the Carolina Hurricanes at Little Caesars Arena.

“I thought we had a tough time skating, so it was really hard for us to make plays,” McLellan said. “It looked like we were in mud. We couldn’t separate well. And then we got hemmed in our zone and a lot of our time and our energy was spent defending. When we finally got the puck, we had no legs to go the other way.

“There’s a few reasons for that. One, just legs and energy. I don’t know why we didn’t have it. Two, we didn’t win a lot of faceoffs in our zone, so we started there and they’re a volume shooting team, so they’re firing around, and we got hemmed in a few times. And then three, I thought they were just flat-out quicker to pucks in our zone.”

The Red Wings (30-25-6) have lost three in a row in regulation for the first time under McLellan and dropped out of a playoff position for the first time since Feb. 1, due to having fewer regulation wins than the New York Rangers.

Heading into back-to-back games, Thursday at home vs. Utah (7 p.m., FanDuel Sports Network) and Friday at Eastern Conference-leading Washington, the Red Wings better find their legs fast or risk sliding further out of the postseason race.

“During the game we kind of lost track of our D-zone,” Moritz Seider said. “They had extended times there and we just spent a little bit too much energy defending. And once we had the puck, we had to get off the ice and change.

“I thought the will was there, the compete was there, and obviously that’s very frustrating,” Seider said.

The Red Wings’ lack of energy was best illustrated in the second period when the Hurricanes hemmed them in their zone for stretches, none longer than late in the period when Simon Edvinsson and Albert Johansson logged a staggering 4½-minute shift.

“In the end you’re just breathing through your eyelids,” Seider said. “You just try to absorb everything, try to stay compact and in front of the net and let the goalie see as much as possible. Just try to use your last percent of energy to really defend well around your net. I think the boys did a great job of blocking shots, being in the lanes. They just kept them to the outside. Thought they handled it very, very well.”

Said McLellan: “That’s on one, the goaltender to get to get a whistle when it comes to him and two, the forwards to manage it a lot better. We got two changes in with forward lines, which means there were fresh forwards on the ice, and we did have the puck. There are times where you have to execute just to manage two or three players that can’t breathe, and we didn’t do that.”

Carolina scored late in the first period (Jordan Martinook) and early in the second (Jordan Staal) before Elmer Soderblom, promoted to the top line with Dylan Larkin and Lucas Raymond in the third period, scored with 9:55 remaining in the third.

The Red Wings didn’t have enough push for the tying goal, however, as Frederik Andersen made 24 saves.

Alex Lyon made 28 saves, stopping a penalty shot by Taylor Hall with 4:38 to play.

“It’s unfortunate that the winning goal was a bad bounce behind the net,” McLellan said. “I thought Alex made some real good saves after that when we needed him to. But a night where we just didn’t have enough players going, or enough legs going, and we play well when we’re a skating team.”