Red Wings are thriving under Todd McLellan. How long can they keep it going?

The Detroit Red Wings first two weeks under new head coach Todd McLellan have been exactly what a team hopes for when it makes a midseason coaching change.

It was only Dec.

23 that the Red Wings were booed off home ice in a 4-0 loss to the St.

Louis Blues , signaling the end of Derek Lalondes tenure as Red Wings head coach three days later.

Detroit was 13-17-4 and had lost three straight games.

The season was slipping away .

Advertisement Quite the jolt, then, to be transported to Monday, when the Red Wings woke up tied for the leagues longest winning streak at four straight and reported for practice to a locker room that had regained its spark.

We needed to take a step back to take a step forward, I think, forward Tyler Motte said.

As unfortunate as that is you never want to see people, whether its players, coaches, staff, people lose their jobs over something thats a group effort.

But for us I think we had to take a step back, really look at ourselves and where were at and how were playing, to be able to take that step forward.

That step started with simplicity: McLellans Day 1 request for his players to play harder, faster and a little bit smarter .

It continued with a money quote overheard at the next days practice to trust their instincts and play fing hockey.

With a fresh perspective, McLellan has, in Mottes eyes, come in, cleared up some gray areas and made things more straightforward for players.

And its impossible to argue with the results.

Its going well, Motte said.

Weve seen a little bit of a spike in energy, a little bit getting rewarded, more shots to the net ...

it feels good for us.

But it cant just be a honeymoon phase.

Weve got to continue to work.

And just about every day we get a chance to practice, hes got something new for us.

There is no doubt the energy spike from McLellans arrival has been palpable.

He has a commanding presence and decades of NHL experience to shape and bolster his messages.

That certainly helps explain how the Red Wings, who hadnt won four straight games all season, ripped off that streak within their first five games under McLellan.

But in Mottes answer, you can also feel the page starting to turn from what has happened over the last two weeks in Detroit to what will come next.

Because for as much as this rejuvenation can indeed be traced to McLellans arrival, the new coach bump they are now experiencing only lasts so long.

Its what follows that will chart the course of the rest of their season and beyond.

I think of marriages, when you get home from the honeymoon and the real world kicks in, and it becomes work every day, McLellan said.

Were probably in that phase now.

Were in the work phase, where we have to trust that path were laying out for the players is the right one, and we have to trust that theyre willing to accept some of the guidance were giving them.

Advertisement Were counting on them playing faster, harder and smarter, and accountability, I think, comes into play a little bit now.

Catching them when they get a little bit sloppy or they start to slip.

Youll notice that he used the word when and not if.

Because at some point, the Red Wings will start to slip again.

The seasons too long for them not to.

Consider, for a moment, two other prominent NHL coaching changes this season.

The Boston Bruins fired Jim Montgomery on Nov.

19, when they were 8-9-3.

After the switch to Joe Sacco, they ripped off seven wins in their next nine games and worked their way up to 20-14-4.

But theyve since lost four straight, and their grip on a playoff spot has become tepid once again.

Meanwhile, the Blues were 9-12-1 on Nov.

24 when they fired Drew Bannister to hire Montgomery and went 5-1-1 in their next seven.

In just two weeks, they were back above .500 at 14-13-2.

In the time since, though, theyve alternated losing skids and winning streaks to tread water.

Like any adrenaline rush, the surge that follows a coaching change doesnt last forever.

And thats why I thought McLellan made a particularly self-aware point after the Red Wings practice Monday, ahead of Tuesdays game against the Ottawa Senators .

Ottawa is a team that has given the Red Wings fits in recent seasons, and McLellan was in the middle of praising the job new Senators coach Travis Green has done in getting them to turn the corner.

He knows this is a big game they all are for Detroit right now.

The test will be to play against them, but more importantly, the test will be how do we respond to some not adversity, some feel-good time now, McLellan said.

Are we prepared to build on it? Are we prepared just to sit on it? Or are we going to give it back? One of those three things is going to happen.

And Id like to think the build part will show up.

But until we take the test, we dont know.

Advertisement As for whether theyre able to do that, there are a few things Ill be watching in particular.

The first is the penalty kill, which just so happened to be goaltender Alex Lyon s answer on Monday when I asked him what he had been most encouraged by under McLellan so far.

Thats been an area McLellan and new assistant coach Trent Yawney have attacked right away to revamp and for good reason.

Detroits penalty kill was succeeding just 68.8 percent of the time when Lalonde and assistant coach Bob Boughner were let go.

Had that rate continued, it would have been among the five worst penalty-killing seasons in NHL history .

Since McLellans first practice on Dec.

28, its at 80 percent still not elite, and a very small sample in just four games, but a positive trend.

That number is almost exactly league average, which is a significant jump.

Its a bad feeling when you (put) a man in the box and you feel uncomfortable, Lyon said.

The Red Wings tried other changes to fix their penalty kill this season, of course, but none solved the problem for any sustained period.

It was only a month ago, for example, that the Red Wings were hopeful that some tweaks to be more aggressive would turn the tide.

It did not.

This new approach appears to be a bit more structured and focused on pressuring more opportunistically rather than aggressively.

Motte described it as also being more clear-cut, which surely helps the players.

And so far, its worked out quite well.

Something to consider, though, is that Detroits kill is still giving up nearly identical expected goals numbers short-handed in the last four games compared to before Christmas, based on data from Evolving Hockey.

The main difference has been an .842 short-handed save percentage from their goaltenders since Dec.

28, compared to .763 before the change.

Advertisement Expected goals numbers dont capture everything, of course, and it stands to reason that a more structured kill would give up fewer east-west passes that raise the degree of difficulty for the goaltender on potential saves without showing up in expected goals data.

But still, the kill and its success going forward will be a major determinant of how well Detroit can maintain its recent run, so whatever explains the improvement, theyll need it to keep working.

Another key will be finding more five-on-five offense, as the power play is currently clicking at a 53.9 percent rate over the last four games.

That unit is a big reason why the Red Wings have scored four or more goals in each game of this winning streak, but it wont stay at that level all season the best ever was the 2022-23 Edmonton Oilers at 32.4 percent though with the talent available, it should remain very good.

The most important factor of all, though, might just be how well the Red Wings can carve out a proper identity under McLellan something that has eluded them all season.

And if you want the clearest indicator of just how early this all is, McLellan himself isnt sure yet what he wants that finished product to look like.

I think for me, I still need more time to answer that fairly, the coach said Monday.

I believe theres pace in our game when were playing properly.

I think theres a skill factor that exists in our game.

I think that we are a little bit, even within games, were up and down a little bit roller-coaster-like.

Were high and were low.

So were a little inconsistent with play, so wed like to become a consistent team.

But thats not a true identity.

Im just telling you some of our characteristics.

And Id like to maybe re-address that question a little later on when I know the group a bit better.

Perhaps the most encouraging thing I heard Monday, though, came next.

For as much as we want to dictate what the identity is, and well try, theyll probably dictate it with how they play, McLellan said.

And the parts of the game they really grab and excel in.

Every coach will set a few bottom lines, to be sure.

And it wont always be what the players want to hear on a given day.

But McLellan seems perfectly comfortable with building around the existing DNA of his players in constructing their collective identity.

Its one of the many advantages of the experience he brings to the table.

Advertisement When McLellan was in Los Angeles, he found that the Kings players and especially their stars embraced the defensive part of the game.

His Oilers teams were fast and skilled, always on the go.

And back in Detroit, from 2005-08, his Red Wings teams had lots of offense at first but needed to add a bit more grit before finally winning the Stanley Cup in 2008.

Theres no telling how long it will take for McLellan and his players to figure out exactly what that identity is this time around.

It probably cant be answered during this honeymoon phase, however long it lasts.

It wont stay this easy forever in Detroit.

But McLellan and his team sound prepared for the challenges that still await.

(Top photo: Kirk Irwin / NHLI via Getty Images).

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