Wings, Red

The Wings have gone 3-3 since Christmas and are currently in a 3-way race for the Atlantic Division with the Canadians of Montreal and the Lightning of Tampa Bay. John Gibson continues to be a pretty lightswitch goalie but has since been better than I’ve made him out to be, and McClellan continues to prove why he is the guy moving forward.

I still have concerns about the defense, but if we can keep getting a good lead in the 1st period like the game against Ottawa, we can beat anybody. When Gibson is on, he is on. He can give the toughest of squads a run for their money. However when he’s off, we need to score at least five goals to win. Early on in the year it seemed he let in four goals every start. He’s gotten much better since then and continued to prove me wrong, but it’s still a bit concerning. 

McClellan on the other hand just continues to impress me as far as coaching and adjusting to the roller coaster of the regular season. The Wings went through a pretty rough skid about a week ago, and McClellan voiced his thoughts on the matter that it was a pretty bad performance from everyone. He didn’t slaughter anyone in the press conference after the back to back losses to the Penguins of Pittsburgh, but it was apparent that he wasn’t happy. 

So what does he do? He makes line adjustments and we look back on offense. Exact type of coaching a winning hockey team needs and especially the Wings. Because as excited as I am that we’re in contention for the Atlantic, the Ides of March are coming. 

If you’re not familiar with the Wings history with the third month of the year, I’ll catch you up. For  years now we’ve looked great headed into March and are in contention for a playoff spot. And then March comes, and we implode. We went 4-11 last year in March and 3-11 the year before. I don’t know what it is about March, but we can’t win. But with McClellan, and the new expectations, I have hope. We just need to give ourselves some leeway in the wild card or division race before then. 

LGRW.

Motor City Kitties

Let’s jump right into it since I don’t want to cover how arbitration works (yet). Last week I covered the top 3 of the lineup, and now we move to the ever-controversial heart of the lineup. Last year, we left a ton of men on base in September and the playoffs, and that was largely due to this part of the lineup simply not showing up. Nevertheless, this part of the lineup is pretty important. Here we go.

Batting fourth I will take the left fielder, Riley Greene. I know I said I’d take Kerry over Riley when healthy, but Riley is still a good option for cleanup. Riles belted out 36 homers with 111 RBIs last year, the best on the team for both, but has a negative clutch factor. Riles also led the league in strikeouts, and hit a pretty abysmal .212 in the playoffs. I know he’s still young, and his stats are pretty eye boggling for a 24 year old, but I think he still needs more time to develop for a franchise guy, given his reputation now.

Batting fifth I will take the first baseman Spencer Torkelson. The supposed ‘can’t miss’ prospect from ASU has been a pretty big letdown in the grand scheme of things. That being said, 2025 was his best season of his career, and he looks to be getting better at being a great middle of the lineup power hitter. 31 Tork-Bombs last year with a less than ideal .240 average makes him about the fifth best projected hitter next year in my books. He also quietly led the league in fielding assists last year and had a .996 fielding percentage as a first baseman. Not the hardest position to play, but it’s not easy either. Would love to see Tork remain a Tiger for a while and develop even further as a hitter.

Batting sixth I will take the catcher Dillon Dingler. The guy who sounds like he has every food allergy known to man and was a nightmare to every parent at their kid’s birthday parties (his real name is Francis which doesn’t help). However, I really like Dingler, and while his stats are pretty similar to McKinstry’s, I’d take him over the Z-Man just because of my personal bias. Dingler won a Gold Glove in 2025 (which should have gone to Alejandro Kirk but that’s besides the point) and batted .278 on the year. His solo shot to left field in game 3 of the 2025 ALDS against Cleveland to spark the barrage of runs in the sixth inning is the reason for my first noise complaint in my dorm. Dingler just provides a great two way player to insert at really any spot in the lineup. He had more WAR this year than Riley Greene, which proves how significant his 2025 breakout year was. He’s an amazing glue guy that is going to have a great 2026. I could talk all day about this guy, but I’ll leave it at that.

As of right now the lineup stands: 1. Parker Meadows (CF) 2. Gleyber Torres (2B) 3. Kerry Carpenter (RF) 4. Riley Greene (LF) 5. Spencer Torkelson (1B) 6. Dillon Dingler (C).

The ‘Stons

Coming off of a 4th quarter comeback against the Bulls of Chicago last night, the Pistons cruise to an impressive 28-9 record. Isaiah Stewart had a career high 30 points last night with Cade Cunningham, Jalen Duren, and Tobias Harris all out for injury. We truly have one of the deepest rosters in the league which showed last night. Beef Stew is going to earn an all-defensive mark this season, as well as key role players like Paul Reed who can fortify the paint while knocking down bank-in 3’s, Duncan Robinson’s sharpshooting ability, Ron Holland’s impressive two-way play, and even the occasional Daniss Jenkins bucket who also had a career high 15 assists last night.

This roster is so lethal especially in those moments where no starters are on the floor for either team. That’s where we really excel and how we win games against other good teams. Sure, Nikola Jokic is averaging 30 points, 11 assists and 12 rebounds as a center, but he only plays 34 minutes a game. These moments where the opposing stars aren’t on the floor are crucial to our success. Teams in the east are loaded with those exact type of rosters, ones that excel when Brunson, Mitchell, or Giannis is carrying the load, but fall when they aren’t playing. 

That’s the scary part about the Thunder of Oklahoma City. They’re exactly like us. An incredibly deep roster of defensive pests who wipe teams off the floor with their two way efforts (and foul baiting). However, even though OKC got off to a white hot 24-1 start that had them in the conversation of the ‘96 Bulls and ‘17 Warriors, they’ve since gone 7-7 over the last stretch, and look increasingly more beatable by the day.

I have full confidence in this Pistons roster to take this thing into June.

Los Lions

I’m not the particular person to showboat or flaunt about when I’m right about something but I did correctly predict the Lions getting a game winning field goal to beat Ben ‘Kenobi’ Johnson  in Chicago, so I’m not going to brag about it per se, but I was correct and I deserve my flowers.

You know who doesn’t deserve flowers? Dan Campbell. Yes. Pick yourself off the ground. I love Dan. Everybody loves Dan. He’s the engine that turned the Lions around. Before we get to the departure of John Morton (cue the parade), we first must discuss the horrendous playcalling that almost cost us the biggest revenge game of the season.

Chicago has three timeouts with around 2:20 to go in the tied game. We have the ball. We are in field goal range. Ideally we run the ball to keep the clock running to then make them burn at least one timeout to get to the two minute warning. In an ideal world, they have no timeouts and no two-minute warning to fall on with the ball. Instead of this however we decide to THROW THE BALL THREE SEPARATE TIMES, which stops the clock, that way they have the ball with the two minute warning and all three timeouts. 

Look, I know we won the game and all is well and yada yada yada but this cannot go ignored. I love Dan. I’d probably commit a crime for Dan if he asked me too. But the reality is that if we lost that game, there would be a media purge for Dan, and the fact that he solely cost us the game. He didn’t, but he almost did.

So, to quote the late John Lennon, ‘war is over’, as two days ago John Morton was fired from the Lions organization, and the offensive coordinator spot is wide open. So who do we want?

Well, a lot of great coaches have been fired for a change of scenery such as John Harbaugh and Kevin Stefanski, however these names are simply too big for an offensive coordinator spot in De’twah. The odds of us getting them are low to none sadly, but there are still a few names that I wouldn’t mind seeing.

Mike McDaniel, the former Miami Dolphins head coach and offensive guru is in the mix, and in my opinion, does not have the same reputation that Harbaugh and Stefanski have. Which in our sake, is a good thing because it’s more likely that he’s our offensive coordinator. 

McDaniel is my dream candidate. He’s probably too big of a name, but I still think there’s a solid chance he comes to Detroit. McDaniel led the Dolphins to a sub-par 7-10 record this year, but the streets will never forget the 2022 season, in which McDaniel almost broke offensive playcalling. The Dolphins had the second best offense that year, largely due to the three headed monster that was Tua, Mostert, and Hill behind the line. When the offense was clicking, it was unstoppable. The two-high safety protocol by defenses that is now custom throughout the league is largely due to Tyreek Hill lighting up offenses that year. Tua led the league in passing, Tyreek led the league in receiving yards and receiving touchdowns and Mostert led the league in rushing touchdowns. Imagine what he could do with our offense. 

We’re going to see if Campbell keeps hiring in-house people (like with John Morton which worked out swimmingly), but it’s going to come down to one thing: Is an OC job in Detroit more desirable than a head coaching job in Cleveland or Arizona. I certainly hope so.

Only ~214 more days until the next Lions game.