Red Wings’ Steve Yzerman explains exactly what’s wrong in Detroit as slump continues

It wasn’t too long ago that the Detroit Red Wings were the hottest team in the NHL. They had rattled off six wins in a row, and they jumped up to No. 6 in the East standings.

A lot has changed since that sixth win in a row. The Red Wings have now lost eight of their last nine games, and they are no longer in playoff contention. Red Wings fans are blaming the patch that was put on the team’s jerseys before the slump started, but who knows the real reason why they are struggling. Except for maybe Steve Yzerman.

If the Red Wings want to make the playoffs, they need to get back to their winning ways, and they need to break out of this slump soon. General manger and Red Wings legend Steve Yzerman was recently asked what the issue is, and he thinks it’s a culmination of a lot of different things.

“Kind of a collection of all aspects of our game,” Steve Yzerman said, according to an article from NHL.com. “Our goaltending save percentage is down. Defensively, I would say we’re giving up a lot of chances, which contributes to the goaltending save percentage being down.”

One big issue that the Red Wings are facing is that Dylan Larkin is out. Larkin is one of the best players on the team, and he is also a leader. Losing a guy like that hurts.

“With Dylan being out, it pushes everybody up a little bit (in the lineup), and we just don’t quite have that depth up front to not be affected or minimize the effect of having a player who plays significant minutes for us out,” Yzerman said. “We’re just not quite deep enough yet for that. But we’ve still got to find a way.

“Over the last nine games now, we’ve won one. I think for what our expectation is of our team, I think we’ve still got to win a few of those games. Even without Husso, even without Larkin, my expectation would be to win some of those games, and we haven’t been able to do that.”

The Red Wings recently brought up Simon Edvinsson because of a different injury: Jake Walman’s lower body issue. Edvinsson should be able to pick up some of the slack and help the Red Wings down the stretch in general.

“It’s both,” Yzerman continued. “But he’s going to play. I wouldn’t waste a recall just to have a body because we still have Justin Holl, who hasn’t been in the lineup recently. We expect him to play, and we expect him to contribute.

“His game is just maturing and evolving, like you hope for all your young players down there. We’ve very pleased with how his play has progressed throughout the season.”

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