Penalty parade continues October 27, 2017, 4:49 PM ET [7 Comments] Bob Duff

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The Detroit Red Wings continue along in the penalty phase of their season and as far as their leader is concerned, the punishment being meted out is warranted.



“We are where we are,” Wings captain Henrik Zetterberg remarked after Thursday’s 3-2 loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning dropped the team to 0-5-1 in their last six games. “You can’t say anything else.



“We aren’t good enough to win games and that’s why we’ve lost six in a row.”



Why aren’t they good enough? We could spend hours on that topic, from bad contracts, to poor drafting, to suiting up too many players of the same ilk but in the present tense, the immediate problem that is currently dragging this team down is their penchant for penalty talking.



“Stupid,” was Detroit coach Jeff Blashill’s one-word description of his team’s frequent habit for breaking the rules. “I think we were self-destructive.”



In Tuesday’s 1-0 loss at Buffalo, Detroit center Dylan Larkin drew a natural hat-trick of slashing penalties.



“We have to be more careful,” Zetterberg said. “We can’t keep slashing. It’s 11 games in now. We should be better of knowing what we can and can’t do.



“That’s on us.”



The Wings are the NHL’s 12th-most penalized team, spending an average of 10:21 per game in the sin bin. Detroit’s 49 minor penalties rank third in the league.



“You just can’t go in the box like that,” Blashill said. “I think last year we were in the top 10 of fewest penalties, minors taken. In that range, top 10 or 11 (actually 20th overall in the league in minors taken and 21st in penalty time per game). This year, we’re in the top 10 the wrong way.



“That’s not a formula for success. We gotta get that changed now.”



It’s easy to blame the NHL for the new slashing standard, or to spin it away as the discretionary work of a referee but the reality is that the Wings have stubbornly refused to adjust the way they play the game, and are paying a price because of it.



“You gotta keep your stick on the ice,” Blashill said. “Certainly, like any penalty, the ref has his own kind of degree of what he thinks is a call but at the end of the day, when I look at every one of them, it’s a penalty. We’re putting ourselves as risk making that call. That’s 100 percent on us.



“We can’t whine about the refs making the penalty calls. We could potentially say there were some the other way but that doesn’t excuse us from taking those penalties. We gotta make sure we keep our sticks on the ice.”



Until they do, the Wings will be playing short and eventually playing from behind and chasing the game, a losing strategy almost every time.

“You kill so many penalties, you get back on your heels, you give momentum, and it makes it hard,” Blashill said. “So then all of a sudden five on five, you’re on your heels a little bit and you can’t get going, you can’t build enough momentum.”



And the beatings go on.



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