DETROIT -- For the second straight season, the Detroit Red Wings' home opener ended with the team being booed off the ice.
An evening that began with a red carpet entrance, rookie debuts and even an early lead for the Red Wings quickly devolved into a nightmare at Little Caesars Arena as the Montreal Canadiens scored five unanswered goals to run away with a 5-1 win.
Here's five thoughts on how it unfolded, and why it matters in a crucial season for Detroit.
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There's no ambiguity on the culprit for the Red Wings' unraveling.
"Fundamental hockey," Detroit head coach Todd McLellan said. "Hockey that you play (in) bantam, midget ... junior, American league, pro. You don't give up two-on-ones. If a D is down, a forward covers. You manage the puck. You don't turn it over."
In the second half of the first period, the Red Wings gave up three goals, all on the rush. First it was a partial breakaway goal by Zack Bolduc. Then a two-on-one finished by Oliver Kapanen. And finally, with just under seven seconds left in the first period, a trailing Mike Matheson was left with too much time and space and punctuated the run.
"If it happened once or twice in a game, it'd be OK," McLellan said. "But there was maybe six or seven outnumbered rushes at the end of the first period, from the 10-minute mark on. And it's unacceptable."
And it's not like Detroit wasn't expecting to have to defend the rush from a high-flying Montreal team that loves to get out and run.
"We know that's their game," Dylan Larkin said. "We talked about it. They go for offense. And we were careless in letting guys get behind us, and careless in not putting the puck behind them."
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Those rushes completely changed the game, in a number of ways.
First, and most obviously, it allowed Montreal to chase goaltender John Gibson -- Detroit’s biggest offseason addition -- after giving up five goals on 13 shots in the game’s first 37:12. Gibson was making his Red Wings debut, but against looks like those in the first period, he had little chance to find an early rhythm.
Second, it kneecapped the Red Wings’ forecheck, which had actually been noticeable early in the game. Detroit’s bottom-six lines in particular established an early presence in the Montreal zone, but it all vanished once the odd-man rushes started going the other way.
“We’ve talked about it all camp, it’s a five-man forecheck,” Larkin said. “And when people start getting behind you, the D,(it’s) human nature just to not go. And we need everyone to go. That’s why our forecheck is good. It was good last year. It was good in camp. But when people start getting behind you, you’re looking over your shoulder.”
At that point, the Red Wings had a neutered forecheck, a chased goalie and a two-goal deficit -- a losing recipe.
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The way this one played out won't do anything to quiet the concerns around Detroit's blue line.
The Red Wings only added to the margins of their defense corps this offseason, signing Jacob Bernard-Docker and Travis Hamonic. On Thursday, Bernard-Docker was scratched and Hamonic was on the ice for three of Montreal’s first four goals along with his defense partner Albert Johansson, who was on for four.
Detroit changed up the pairings after that, moving Johansson to Moritz Seider’s pair and putting Ben Chiarot with Hamonic, but by then the game was largely out of hand. It’ll be interesting to see what changes come next time out for a Saturday game against the Toronto Maple Leafs.
“Obviously, we didn’t have very many good players,” McLellan said. “So to automatically say, ‘we’re going to make a change with this guy on the back end,’ there’s a real good chance we will, but we have to review the game and then evaluate each of them individually.”
The one pair that stayed together all night was Simon Edvinsson and Axel Sandin-Pellikka, who each played north of 22 minutes. Sandin-Pellikka even saw time on the penalty kill in his NHL debut. That would seem to indicate some early trust from the staff, at least.
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While it's just Game 1 out of 82, McLellan wasn't in a particularly patient mood after the game.
"The players will say -- they probably have already said to you -- 'we can fix this,'" McLellan said. "When? It's time. Some of them have been doing it for years. It's time."
I don't know how many players watch the coach's postgame press conferences, but I'm sure a similar message will be delivered at Friday's practice.
There is obviously plenty of time for the Red Wings to right the ship, and they're far from the first team to have a sloppy season opener. But especially for a team in their situation, they don't have much time to feel their way into things.
There is real urgency to make these fixes fast. Detroit can't allow themselves to get off to another slow start, like the one that doomed them a year ago. And they'll have to find a way to tap into that urgency without allowing it to become panic, which typically only makes a team more sloppy.
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One of the stories of the season for this Red Wings team, good or bad, is going to be how they respond to adversity.
It was a focal-point issue coming into the season, and while it feels a little early to be talking this way, it is suddenly already relevant.
McLellan pointed more toward mental lapses than mental toughness on Thursday, but he also noted that after the first goal "you could feel the air go out a little bit."
That's something the Red Wings are going to have to be mindful of all year along: how to keep their edge and their energy when things are going poorly, self-inflicted or not.
"I'm not hitting the panic button," Larkin said."I believe in this group,and I believe that we can correct all the missed assignments and the lack of execution.I believe we can clean that up."
How well they do that will be the first real thing we learn about this group.