Can the Red Wings power play carry them to a playoff spot?

The Detroit Red Wings have completely turned their season around following their coaching change and it is entirely due to the power play.

It has been two months since the Detroit Red Wings made the decision to fire head coach Derek Lalonde and replace him with Todd McLellan.

After being one of the league’s worst teams to open the season under LaLonde, they have been one of the best teams under McLellan and might finally be in a position to snap their eight-year playoff drought.

Let’s start with what should be three quick and obvious observations with this:

• LaLonde might not have been a very good coach with the Red Wings.

• McLellan might very well be an excellent NHL coach.

• Even if the first two points are true, it is also true to still point out that the Red Wings roster has some very real flaws, even with the improved record and quick in-season turnaround.

The Red Wings’ rebuild has fascinated me because it has been just one of the many recent examples that illustrates how long these full-scale rebuilds can take. They are rarely quick, especially when you do not get much help in the form of draft lottery luck (which the Red Wings have not).

General manager Steve Yzerman’s plan has been methodical. Supporters of it — and him — will point to the overall strength of the farm system, the ceiling of the prospects in it and how the ultimate goal is to build a serious contender instead of just simply making the playoffs and losing. I get that.

But as I argued back in December at the time of the coaching change, there are some other factors worth discussing with this plan. Not all of your prospects are going to pan out the way you want, and you still need to complement the prospects that do pan out with good outside additions.

It is not as simple as just waiting for the farm system to produce players and have everybody just magically get good at the same time. It never works that way.

While the Red Wings are getting some impressive contributions from a lot of their home-grown players (Lucas Raymond is a star; Marco Kasper is really coming on; Moritz Seider and Simon Edvinsson should be the foundation of the defense for the next decade) there have been a lot of mis-steps with the NHL talent evaluation from outside the organization. There have been some bad contracts handed out, bad players acquired and big needs at times blatantly ignored.

Along with that, the actual on-ice play has not really changed much over the past six years and where they rank in some big areas.

At the time of the McLellan hiring I ended an entry here about the Red Wings rebuild asking how much more patience the organization and the fans would have if McLellan, a coach with a proven track record of winning, could not get them to start winning.

Well, we are two months in and they are, in fact, winning. A lot. Since the coaching change the Red Wings have the fourth best record in the NHL and are very much in the playoff race.

The biggest change that’s happened under McLellan is they have opened up things way more offensively, and it has produced some big goal-scoring numbers.

But is it sustainable? Is it a sign of real improvement and progress? And what exactly is driving it?

Let’s talk about it.