Blashill to return as Red Wings' head coach despite missing playoffs again

The Detroit Red Wings are preaching patience with their head coach after another disappointing season.

Jeff Blashill will be back as Detroit's bench boss in 2018-19, general manager Ken Holland confirmed Tuesday.

Blashill failed to guide the Red Wings to a playoff berth for the second straight campaign, but Holland expressed confidence in him.

"I think in Jeff's case, he's got three years of experience," Holland said. "Some of those ideas that he might have had when he became an NHL head coach, with the success that he had in the American Hockey League, the success he had in college, the success that he had in junior hockey, this is a totally different set of circumstances.

"The team played hard right to the end. We've been out of it for … unless we went on a massive, won seven or eight or nine in a row, we really just sort of stayed behind and then we lost nine in a row in March and the bottom fell out. But I thought even when we lost nine in a row, we lost a lot of games by a goal, we played hard."

Holland added that he was happy with how Detroit's young core developed under Blashill this season.

"I thought that the young kids that have been brought up, they improved," the GM said. "He played them, they were important, they got minutes. I think the experience of three years in the National Hockey League, he's been a guy that had success along the way, there's a reason for him to continue to be the head coach of the Detroit Red Wings."

Blashill has one season remaining on the contract he signed in June 2015. Holland was in the final year of his deal, but he signed a two-year extension Saturday.

The Red Wings made the playoffs in Blashill's first season as their head coach, but they were eliminated in the first round by the Tampa Bay Lightning.

He will coach Team USA at the World Championship next month for the second straight year.