In the eye of the Hurricane

I was at the Detroit-Carolina game on Tuesday and somehow ended up writing about Ms. Frizzle and The Magic School Bus. Please, bear with me.

When I was a kid, one of my favorite book series was The Magic School Bus.

And for whatever reason, I always remembered the one where Ms. Frizzle flew her class into the eye of a hurricane. I can picture that calming moment where the magical bus floats at the center, and the teacher explains how somehow, in the midst of all the chaos, there’s a soft, peaceful center.

Todd McLellan was Ms. Frizzle on Tuesday night. Earlier this week, he talked about his team stepping into the room and being tested by the Carolina Hurricanes.

But without a magical bus to guide them, the Detroit Red Wings lost a 2-1 game that felt like a blowout based on possession and geography.

At one point in the second period, the Hurricanes cycled and cycled and cycled some more, trapping the Red Wings' defensive pair of Simon Edvinsson and Albert Johansson on the ice for a 4-minute, 24-second shift.

Detroit weathered that storm without allowing a goal, but it was a tone-setting body blow and a reminder of how much Carolina dictated this game. The Hurricanes could, and did, what they wanted, and the Red Wings simply couldn’t manage the game well enough to have a legitimate chance.

Carolina dominated the faceoff dot, winning 60 percent of the draws. When Detroit had a chance to calm things down on multiple occasions, Red Wings goalie Alex Lyon kept the puck in play, and Hurricanes forecheckers happily turned those decisions into additional zone time.

McLellan, since he was hired on Boxing Day, has made it his job to teach the Red Wings how to manage the moment. And within the past week, now that real pressure is applied, they’ve been exposed.

And with the NHL trade deadline looming, everything feels more dire.

Dylan Larkin has struggled in the past week, and McLellan wasn’t afraid to call out the captain publicly about it. Edvinsson and Johansson are no longer unknown commodities—teams are focusing on them in pre-scouts, and there have been some unfortunate “teachable moments” for the pair.

On top of that, Detroit lost Andrew Copp and Michael Rasmussen recently—one for the season and one for the short term—and that lack of center depth was noticeable as the Hurricanes dominated the middle of the ice.

Copp’s season-ending injury is looming large. Multiple Red Wings told me within the past week how he’d become more of Larkin’s vocal secondary leader in recent weeks, someone who had made a once-quiet locker room a bit more vocal.

The sky isn’t falling for Detroit—I think that’s important to note—but Thursday’s game against the Utah Hockey Club is starting to feel a bit like a must-win scenario, with a trip to the league-leading Washington Capitals on Friday night.

For the Red Wings players and coaches, one of the challenges will be not allowing the Hurricanes to beat them twice—turning a sobering defeat into a rallying cry and not a rolling boulder, similar to what happened to the 2023-24 version of this team.

For Red Wings general manager Steve Yzerman, there’s a very real question about how and what he should do before the deadline.

Detroit needs help at center, even with Rasmussen potentially back on Thursday. The Red Wings might also have to shop for another goalie—again—because Lyon and Talbot seem to have turned into pumpkins at the worst times after being ridden into the ground earlier in the season under Derek Lalonde.

The Red Wings have effectively become a magic school bus that seems to have the right driver but needs serious repairs to be able to actually go on zany adventures like they did in January and February to even pull back into the playoff race.

Whether Detroit can do that or not, honestly, will be fascinating. But Tuesday was a pretty good reminder that when it comes to the long-term build for the Red Wings, we are just starting to see the beginning of the serious tests.