Todd McLellan watched most of the final day of 2026 Detroit Red Wings training camp from the family lounge above ice level, and didn't care for some of what he saw.
The Wings wrapped up a four-day camp inside Little Caesars Arena on Sunday, Sept. 20, with about an hour's worth split between special teams battles and a scrimmage featuring one squad largely comprised of NHLers and the other of minor leaguers.
"I wasn't happy with our day today at all," McLellan said afterwards. "I was happy with the kids, but I wasn't happy with our day. So we've got to take it back up here after their off days and get going and not waste a day."
To his point: The minor leaguers won, 6-0.
"The kids were really good," McLellan said. "They worked their butts off, they
made plays, they executed better than the veteran players, it wasn't even close. So that's a really good sign for our organization. Or maybe it isn't, it depends how you look at it. But the problem that we have is the amount of time we have to truly evaluate."
Intrasquad scrimmages are one thing; there really isn't much physical play. The better tests come in the week ahead, when the Wings embark on a preseason slate that has them at the Columbus Blue Jackets on Monday, Tuesday at the Pittsburgh Penguins and at Little Caesars Arena on Thursday against the Buffalo Sabres and Saturday against the Blue Jackets.
It's half the amount of games the Wings usually have in the preseason, an NHL-wide mandate that reduced exhibition to four games simultaneously with the regular season expanding to 84 games.
"Eight was egregious, to be honest," Andrew Copp said. "I think the four is kinda a sweet spot. You come in, you get to work right away. There's no dilly-dallying around. There's no extra stuff going on. We've got to get right to the point."
Goalie splits
The plan is for designated backup, newcomer Daniil Tarasov, to play the first two periods Monday and No. 1 John Gibson the first two periods in Pittsburgh. Top prospect Trey Augustine and Michal Postava will each play one period those nights, and then Gibson (likely for the finale) and Tarasov will each play a full game at Little Caesars Arena.
Tarasov was signed in free agency for one year at $2 million in free agency.
"It's a huge opportunity, joining this team who is battling in the past years," Tarasov said. " I'm just happy to join this team and make it this huge step."
Tarasov was in goal for the Florida Panthers when they scorched the Wings, 8-1, in the season finale last April.
"We got like the AHL roster there," he said. "I felt it was kind of like the preseason game, when we got the AHL against NHL, but the guys like showed up, [showed] they could play in NHL. It was good for a lot of like young guys there."
Missing pieces
Top-four defenseman Simon Edvinsson remains unavailable for anything other than practices pending a new contract, while top-line center Dylan Larkin is unavailable because of an upper-body injury. The hope is they get into a least one preseason game.
"If we can get them in one based on health and get him up and running, then we're sure going to try," McLellan said. "If you don't play in a preseason game, that means you've got to play in a regular season game, and it gets going a lot faster and more intense then."
Back end experiment
Once Edvinsson is available, he'll slot onto the top pair with Moritz Seider. In camp, Albert Johansson was paired with Justin Faulk and Ben Chiarot with Axel Sandin-Pellikka. Jacob Bernard-Docker and William Wallinder are also pushing for jobs. Sandin-Pellikka is vulnerable from the standpoint he can be sent to the minors without waivers, but he's also gifted offensively.
"We thought that Albert and Falker would be a good pair," McLellan said. "We think that they'll complement each other, and then Benny gets to go and play with whoever's going to be on that other side. And we're not adverse to pulling Simon and Mo apart at some point. When they play together they're very good for the most part, but if we could have one of them on the ice for most of the game, that helps."
Organizing the lineup
Forwards Michael Brandsegg-Nygard, Carter Bear and Nate Danielson and defensemen Willian Wallinder and Sandin Pellikka had Sunday off to satisfy Collective Bargaining Agreement regarding days off during camp.
"That allows them to now play back-to-back, so they will play tomorrow in Columbus, and they are scheduled to play on Tuesday in Pittsburgh, and that gets them two games," McLellan said. "That leaves two more games - we'll make decisions on those later on. The players that we think are close will get more games, and as we get to game four, we'd like to have somewhat of a lineup together, with maybe one or two pieces that we're deciding on playing that night."
Larkin's unavailability affects line combinations, but so far it's been Andrew Copp with Alex DeBrincat and Lucas Raymond; Marco Kasper with Emmitt Finnie and Viktor Arvidsson; Danielson with Brandsegg-Nygard and Carter Mazur, and J.T. Compher with Keegan Kolesar and either of Michael Rasmussen and Mason Appleton.
Contact Helene St. James at Hstjames@freepress.com. Read more on the Detroit Red Wings and sign up for our Red Wings newsletter.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Todd McLellan 'not happy' with Detroit Red Wings as training camp ends
