Detroit — Coach Todd McLellan had three specific goals in mind when the Red Wings began training camp in September in Traverse City.

For the most part, the three were being met fairly well throughout the course of the season.

But by the end, especially in March and April as it's usually been the case with the Red Wings, the Wings gave all the improvement back and were headed toward their 10th consecutive season without making the playoffs.

In all, it was a disappointing turn of events that McLellan took responsibility for.

"One was to get physically stronger in all areas of the game," McLellan said, explaining the three goals. "Two was that mental toughness and resilience we talked about numerous times through the year. Three, was game management, and if we could improve in those three areas, we felt we would make strides and get to our goal."

For the majority of the season, as the Wings were living among the top-end teams in the Eastern Conference standings, it appeared the lessons were being learned.

"For the most part, for three-quarters of the season, we improved in those areas," McLellan said. "We wavered a bit here and there, but we got better."

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But then the Wings encountered the last quarter of the race to the finish line, and they wilted.

"The league plays out in four different phases," McLellan said. "The beginning, then you settle in, then the dog days, and then the push. I've talked about the push more than anything. When the push arrived, teams elevated and I don't know if we stayed in the same spot or if we dropped.

"We pushed and pushed and pushed and we improved and then we gave that back a little bit at the end of the year."

McLellan analyzed the three goals and figures the Wings weren't consistent enough in applying them.

"You look at some of the losses, were we physically heavy enough? Did we play an aggressive, attacking game? Sometimes, sometimes not, and you can't have that at push time," McLellan said. "Were we mentally resilient? We (were) early in the season, we never lost back-to-back games. Sometimes we were and some weren't (later on), and you can't have that at push time."Then the game management stuff, some of the mistakes that we worked hard to erase showed up again down the stretch, and the season is just long enough to expose your true team. You play all 82 games and figure out who we are and we didn't get those three goals to the level we needed to."

McLellan figures the reason why can be pointed directly to himself, and his staff.

"You talk about leadership and the captaincy, that stuff, you're looking at the guy. I'm the guy who is responsible for it. I'm the captain of the ship, too. We have to do a better job, we have to get players to do things they don't want to do. If it's in there, it's our job to draw it out.

McLellan was asked about his 45-second postgame press conference after the embarrassing, season-ending 8-1 loss in Florida, now two weeks ago.

McLellan spoke glowingly about the winning culture of the two-time defending Stanley Cup champion Panthers, but bit his tongue about a half-hearted effort the Wings turned in that evening.

"My lack of words spoke for how I felt at that point," McLellan said. "Listening to the player after, and talking to them, they weren't pleased. They were embarrassed with that outing, and it's something we have to change in our organization. Every night is important, every day is important.

"We weren't happy with the way things ended throughout this season, and then to cap it off with that was very disappointing. My complimenting Florida was a different way in saying I was disappointed in our players."

This article originally appeared on The Detroit News: For Todd McLellan, Detroit Red Wings' fade 'starts with us'