You’ve got to give the Detroit Red Wings one thing - they still talk a good game.

Playing a good game, well those are few and far between.

You know it, and frankly, they know it.

When teams pressure the Wings, they go to pieces like a cookie left too long in a cup of coffee. Actually, it’s more like a disintegration.

They come apart. They panic with the puck, and ultimately, turn it over to the other team.

“We keep doing it, so we’re talking about it,” Detroit captain Henrik Zetterberg said of the club’s penchant for giveaways.

It’s as perplexing as it is frequent.

“We’re not dumb here,” Zetterberg said. “We know what we do wrong but somehow we keep doing the same mistakes.”

The Wings fell behind 4-0 in the first period of Wednesday’s 6-1 loss at Boston. They trailed 3-0 in their previous game at Toronto.

Detroit has allowed 71 first-period goals this season.

“We’ve got some tough challenges coming up here starting with Chicago (Friday) at home,” Zetterberg said. “We have to hit the reset button and come in and play a good game.”

Detroit coach Jeff Blashill found himself at a loss in search of an adjective to describe his team’s epically poor starts to games.

“I don’t know what the word is,” Blashill said. “I know we’re going to have to continue to get better. Our job as coaches is that we’re going to have to continue to demand that we get better so that’s what we’re going to do come Friday morning.”

Coreau Shipped Out
The Wings assigned goalie Jared Coreau to AHL Grand Rapids on Thursday. Coreau, hooked in favor of Petr Mrazek after the third Boston goal in Wednesday’s loss, was 0-3-1 with a 5.02 goals-against average and .874 save percentage in his last four starts but Blashill emphasized Coreau wasn’t to blame for Wednesday’s debacle.

“It wasn’t on the goalie at all,” Blashill said. “It wasn’t on … Jared had nothing to do with it. I needed to slow the game down a little bit and then once Pete went in I thought Pete was playing good.

“I didn’t think it was fair to put Jared back in at that point. But Jared had nothing to do with it. It was unfortunate for him. I told him that when we pulled him.”

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