In Red Wings Land

Red Wings’ rally ‘fool’s gold’ that hides deeper issues  – Mlive

“We lost every puck race, every puck battle, every competition battle,” Blashill said. “If you lose those types of battles, I don’t care what happens, you’re going to get scored on.

“We better understand how much we got to compete and work and sacrifice. We finally started doing that in the third, both offensively and defensively. We gave up some chances but some of that is you’re probably taking some chances. I thought in the third we competed, we worked, we sacrificed, we blocked shots. The first two we didn’t compete, didn’t work, didn’t sacrifice. The only chance for our team to do anything special is to be extraordinary in our compete, our work and our sacrifice.”

This is the second time in Jeff Blashill’s coaching tenure his team has given up a ten-spot to the opposition but it’s as angry as I’ve ever heard him in the after-action.  For those looking for a coaching change (which isn’t going to happen in the waning months of this regular season), it’s as close to desperate as we’re likely to hear.

Outside of the words-behind-the-words speculation I’m peddling here, he’s not wrong about it though.

Around the League

Wayne Gretzky calls for Russia to be banned from rescheduled world juniors – CBC

Ahead of the Stadium Series, the #NHLonTNT studio crew discusses the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The full segment ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/Md0RMkNl96

— NHLonTNT (@NHL_On_TNT) February 27, 2022

If I understand Gretzky right in his words, he wants to deport every Russian from Canada?

I… don’t think that’s helpful.  I agree with the idea of preventing Russian national teams from engaging in international competitions though.

Palate Cleanser

The Wings and Stars had a charity alumni game and this happened.

This season on ‘Dancing with the Stars’: pic.twitter.com/3G3fqo9thf

— Dallas Stars (@DallasStars) February 27, 2022