The head coach of the Detroit Red Wings had some pointed words for his team after one final embarrassing loss against the Florida Panthers.
“I’ll tell you, both teams came in with nothing on the line, and you can see their championship pedigree,” Todd McLellan said. “So I’m going to compliment the Panthers, it runs throughout their organization, they came and they played and it meant something to them.”
The Red Wings lost 8-1 to the Panthers on Wednesday to put a cap on the club’s 10th consecutive season out of the playoffs.
Later, when asked how he could measure the team’s success — the Red Wings’ 92 points is the most the team has had during the 10-year drought — McLellan simply replied “I’m not even going there.”
The Red Wings led the Atlantic Division in January but went 8-11-4 after the Olympic break to fall out of playoff contention. Four of those regulation losses included blowin third-period leads, including one to these same Panthers on March 10, and another last Saturday to the New Jersey Devils, which mathematically eliminated Detroit from the playoffs.
McLellan was asked if the team should be embarrassed by the way the season ended.
“I think we all should be,” he replied, before walking away.