“Organization is headed in right direction” – Jeff Blashill not to return as Detroit Red Wings coach next season
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Jeff Blashill
The Detroit Red Wings on Saturday announced that Jeff Blashill will not return as coach. Notably, the Red Wings failed to make the Stanley Cup Playoffs in six of the Michigan native’s seven seasons with them and still went on to become the second longest-tenured coach in the National Hockey League (NHL) history.
Blashill, who replaced Mike Babcock in June 2015, was 204-261-72, ranking sixth in Red Wings history in wins and fifth in games coached (537). Coming to the recent season, the Detroit team was 32-40-10 and finished sixth in the Atlantic Division, 26 points out of a playoff spot.
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“The arc of the organization is headed in the right direction, there’s no doubt about that,” Blashill said after a season-ending 5-3 win against the New Jersey Devils on Friday, as quoted by NHL.com.
He added: “I think there are positives to be looked at from the year. I think there were times this year where our team showed great and extraordinary-type sacrifice. There were times this year, when we played our best hockey, that we were as good as anybody and we beat several good teams.”
“Detroit Red Wings stayed in playoff race longer than last couple of years”
The Red Wings were ranked 25th in goals per game (2.77), 31st in goals-against per game (3.78), 26th on the power play (16.3 per cent) and last on the penalty kill (73.8 per cent) at the end of this NHL season.
“We stayed in the playoff race longer than we have in the last couple of years,” Blashill added. “Since we started the rebuild, we have had as much hope as we’ve had.”
On the other hand, talking about the performance of the team, rookie defenceman Moritz Seider stated that they have a long way to go to simply compete in its own against the likes of Florida Panthers, Toronto Maple Leafs, Tampa Bay Lightning and Boston Bruins.
“We’re far away from that,” Seider said. “But we’re adding pieces and we took big strides. We were competing for a wild card for almost half the season. After the All-Star break, we just couldn’t find a way to compete.”
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Sachin Arora
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