Losing by a goal to the Tampa Bay Lightning? Understandable. Getting whipped in Toronto by the Maple Leafs? Not a surprise. Dropping an overtime contest to the Washington Capitals? Acceptable. The week that was did not provide a result for the Detroit Red Wings but at least they fell to some of the NHL’s better teams. That wasn’t the case on Sunday, when they did a complete pratfall against the Vancouver Canucks. The Canucks are a team not unlike Detroit in that they missed the playoffs a year ago and are in the midst of rebuilding. Not exactly an NHL powerhouse. Oh and did we mention that Vancouver was playing the fourth game of a five-game road trip? Yet they were still able to hammer the Wings for a lopsided 4-1 verdict Sunday at Little Caesars Arena. The Wings are now winless (0-3-1) in their last four games, and are a .500 team (4-4-1) after an impressive 4-1 start to the season. Detroit’s early-season swagger has given way to an air of uncertainty. With seven of their next eight games on the road, you get a sense that the season could get away from the Wings very quickly if they don’t step it up. You could make the case that the Wings played fairly well for at least portions of their previous three games but that wasn’t the case Sunday. They were bad with a capital B, as in boy did they stink. What went wrong? Detroit coach Jeff Blashill summed it up in one word. “Everything,… Blashill said. There were turnovers, odd-man rushes, unforced errors, and horrific puck management, all of the catastrophic moments that lead to hockey blasphemy, many of them during a second period which the Wings were outshot 18-6 and outscored 3-0. “None of us played well,… Detroit goalie Jimmy Howard said. “They dictated the play all night long. We got outplayed at every single position.
“The urgency wasn’t there and we’ve got to take it upon ourselves to have it.… It was the first game all season in which it could truly be stated that the Wings looked as lousy as they were predicted to be at the start of the season. “It was a brutal effort,… Blashill said. “I thought it was an embarrassing effort, not even close to the level of competitiveness you have to have. We should be embarrassed for ourselves, from me at the top all the way on down. We got out-competed, outworked, out-detailed. “We said at the beginning of camp, if we’re going to separate ourselves we got to separate ourselves by outworking teams, out-competing teams, out-detailing teams. We got out-competed, outworked, and out-detailed, in every facet of the game.… The past week’s showdown with three top NHL teams was supposed to be a test of where the Wings are in the grand NHL scheme. The scary part from the standpoint of the Wings is that Sunday’s game just might offer the true indication of where this hockey club stands in the pecking order. This was a game Detroit should have been able to dominate. Instead they were dominated by Vancouver. “It felt like we were in between the whole game, maybe not from the start but from the second on,… Detroit captain Henrik Zetterberg said. “It was bad. We weren’t crisp enough, we didn’t execute on passes, we didn’t win our battles. “We’ve got to be way better than this.… But can they be better, or have the Wings found their true level? Helping Hand Mike Green assisted on Anthony Mantha’s first-period goal. The helper was Green’s 10th of the season and gave him a share of the NHL lead in assists by a defenseman along with Shayne Gostisbehere of the Philadelphia Flyers. Follow me on Twitter @asktheduffer