On fan appreciation night, as is the tradition, the Detroit Red Wings gathered at center ice to salute the faithful.
And they heard boos. Catcalls rained down from on high at Little Caesars Arena.
Missing the playoffs for an entire decade will have that effect on a fanbase.
“To hear that, very difficult,” Red Wings captain Dylan Larkin admitted. “Yeah, we’re down. I’m down. As down as I could be right now.”
Coach Todd McLellan’s message to his players about earning the ire of the team’s fans?
Todd Mcllelan on the boos during the salute
“This is hockeytown, they’re not even clamoring for a cup…they just want a group to give them something to cheer for. We earned that reaction…” pic.twitter.com/3mnHXuG6bW
— Stone Cold Steve Yzerman (@McCartyDangles) April 12, 2026
Suck it up. Soak it in. And if you don’t like how it feels, do something about it.
For the time being, live with it. You’ve earned it.
“I’ve been lucky enough to be on the other side of it when they couldn’t stop cheering for this team,” said McLellan, an assistant coach with the 2007-08 Stanley Cup champion Red Wings. “And they’re dying for that. They crave that. That’s what they want.
“And I don’t even know if they want a Stanley Cup championship anymore. They just want a team that’s going to come and give them something to cheer about.”
Red Wings Hearing The Inside Noise
As the playoffs were slipping away, some Detroit players discussed the impact that the outside noise was having on the team. Well, that’s not what this noise was all about.
“This outside noise stuff or whatever, that’s inside noise,” McLellan said. “Those are our fans in our building, and they pay to watch us play. We get paid well to perform for them, and they’re fully entitled to their opinion, and we deserve their opinion.
“There’s no other way to sugarcoat it. That’s what we earned.”
McLellan was equally certain about another fact. Only one group can pull the team out of this funk and turn the fans back on to Red Wings hockey.
That would be the Red Wings themselves. The coach cited the Buffalo Sabres, who’ve made the playoffs this spring after 14 years on the outside, as a prime example of who the Wings need to emulate.
“The only way you get out of it is easy, work your way out of it,” McLellan said. “There’s teams I can use – one just in Upper New York state here, that was in that exact same situation, and they worked their way out of it.”
