DETROIT - After their poorest performance of the young season, Jeff Blashill figured the best way to work out the Detroit Red Wings' problems was to do it not on the ice but in the meeting room.

So, the Red Wings skipped practice Monday morning and instead held a team meeting where Blashill laid out what he expects from his players while also showing video clips from their poor performance in a 4-1 loss to the lowly Vancouver Canucks one night prior.

"For me, the more important thing was the meeting," Blashill said. "I walked in my coaches' room last night and I sat in disgust with our coaching staff for a long time. I wanted to get two things done.

"One I wanted to make sure and send a message to our team that last night's approach and effort wasn't good enough and two, I want to put us in the best position to win tomorrow night, which we obviously need a win. When I did that, I said to myself probably the best way to accomplish both of those things is to have a meeting, which we met for a good amount of time.

"I thought that was better than an hour practice where I would have got the message across like I did get it across through my meeting without maybe the physical exertion where we'll need the energy tomorrow night."

Blashill reiterated what he told the media after the loss to Vancouver gave the Red Wings an 0-3-1 record in the last four games, leaving them with a 4-4-1 mark overall.

He told the Red Wings they didn't compete hard enough, they were outworked and their attention to details were poor.

Although captain Henrik Zetterberg also spoke up during the meeting, Blashill said he did most of the talking.

"I talked, I showed video of lots of things that aren't good enough in the areas that we got to be way better," Blashill said. "It wasn't a discussion meeting. It wasn't a Kumbaya. It was a 'this is not good enough, these are the areas it's not good enough, we got to be better.'

"Now, there's only so much talk to go around. I handled the talk today. There will be another time for them to talk. But today was my time to talk and I handled that. Now we gotta respond."

After going into the dressing room tied 1-1 with Vancouver through the first 20 minutes, the Red Wings were outshot 18-6 in the second period as the Canucks broke the game open with three unanswered goals.

For the game, the Canucks (4-3-1) had a 37-21 edge in the shots department.

Veteran defenseman Niklas Kronwall said the Red Wings need to work harder and be better prepared to end the skid, which came after an encouraging 4-1-0 start.

"We looked at some videos this morning, went through pretty much most of the game, all the mistakes, and there were a lot of them, let's be honest," Kronwall said. "It was embarrassing last night. In saying that, we can't feel sorry for ourselves. What happened happened and we got to learn from it. It can never look like that again.

"Last night there was nothing. We had nobody going and really didn't win any battles whatsoever, lost pucks in the wrong areas. We made all the mistakes that you can think of. Why that is, I'm not sure, but it's unacceptable.

"Obviously it's not good enough, not nearly good enough. But in saying that, let's learn from it, let's move along here. We have a chance to be a good team. Last night, we're going to lose a lot of games this year if we keep playing like that."

Zetterberg views the loss to Vancouver as one bad game and doesn't think it's an indication of long-term problems that are on the horizon.

He also hopes it serves as a wakeup call for the Red Wings.

"It was a stinker," Zetterberg said. "But we know we can play good hockey if we do it right, if we have a little more passion, a little more effort. We didn't have that last night. We can't afford to play like that if we want to go somewhere this year.

"We went through a lot of things here today. The video room we just got was used a lot today. Try and flush this and get ready for a game tomorrow. We see it as one bad game and it's up to us to make sure it's one bad game."

Now, the Red Wings embark on a three-game road stretch that will take them to Buffalo Tuesday and Tampa Thursday before they wrap up the trip Saturday against the Florida Panthers.

It won't get much easier because after the Red Wings return home to host Arizona on Halloween night, they'll head back out for another four on the road against Ottawa, Edmonton, Vancouver and Calgary.

Despite the Red Wings' recent struggles, Blashill remains optimistic.

"I like our team," he said. "We've got no reason not to have success. I like our team. We gotta make sure that we don't let that happen. My last clip (in the meeting) was the current standings in our division. We're two points out of a playoff spot. That's the reality of it. Last night sucked. But it's over.

"Let's make sure we go prepare. Like I said, we can go and play good hockey Tuesday and lose. That's the reality of this league. Nobody is that much better. They got a really good team. They want to win bad. So that's the way it goes.

"But we got to play great hockey over and over again."