4-3 OT Loss in Washington Leaves Red Wings with No More Room for Moral Victories
After a closely contested game against the Capitals ended in missed opportunity and OT defeat, Detroit has run out of runway for building on bright spots. From here on out, results are king
Mandatory Credit: Amber Searls-USA TODAY Sports - 4-3 OT Loss in Washington Leaves Red Wings with No More Room for Moral VictoriesIt would be difficult for the margin of a playoff race to be much finer than that between the Red Wings and Capitals Tuesday evening.
The game went to overtime—a leg-up for Washington, who entered the night in the driver's seat for the Eastern Conference's final playoff berth and ensured they would remain that way by securing a point—and from there, the race only got closer.
A successful Dylan Larkin rush and zone entry commanded the attention of two Capitals, leaving Alex DeBrincat in an ocean of space when he received a pass from his captain. DeBrincat had Moritz Seider lurking unmarked at the back post. He sent a pass toward Seider. If it were six inches further forward, it might have led the German defender in for a tap-in but instead it bounced off Seider's skate, eventually corralled by Washington center Hendrix Lapierre.
Lapierre beat DeBrincat up ice, leaving the Capitals with a three-on-two as they crossed Detroit's blue line. John Carlson slipped an inside pass in for Dylan Strome—DeBrincat's junior teammate with the Erie Otters and professional teammate with the Chicago Blackhawks. Strome re-directed the pass over the glove of Alex Lyon to secure the fourth lead change of the night and the decisive one. Washington solidified its grip on the second wild card spot in the East, all the while pinning the Red Wings on the wrong side of the playoff cut line.
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There were positives to be gleaned from the performance for Detroit. Alex Lyon—as he had been Saturday in Nashville—was strong in goal, keeping the Red Wings afloat during a late first-period Capitals surge. Alex DeBrincat snapped a 13-game goal-less streak in the second period, driving the net with inside position and cooly tucking in a Jeff Petry centering pass. The Red Wings were resilient in overturning multiple deficits against a goaltender in Washington's Charlie Lindgren who looked at times invincible.
Or at least those would have been positives had the game been played in November or January or even two weeks ago, but now? With the arrival of spring, results are king, and Tuesday evening's result strikes a major blow to Detroit's playoff aspirations.
"In reality, it's probably a good road point, but under the circumstances, you would certainly want to get the two full points," said Derek Lalonde. "Obviously some mixed emotions there....Again, in reality, probably a pretty good road point. Under the circumstances, probably want a little bit more."
In truth, though DeBrincat and Seider might have salvaged something in overtime, the Red Wings' best opportunity had already slipped away before their two-on-one break. Detroit entered the third period of a game it needed to win, and win in regulation, with a 2-1 lead. After an astonishing flurry of stops from a desperate Lindgren, David Perron buried a rebound from in tight with just 43 seconds left in the second to provide that lead. Thanks to a poorly timed crisis of puck management however, that lead was gone in 35 seconds, and the Red Wings trailed before the period was five minutes old.
Patrick Kane tied the game again with an angry slap shot with 5:20 to play. It was a defiant goal that kept Detroit afloat but, like Perron's, ultimately proved a false harbinger.
If there is any consolation for the Red Wings, it lies in the fact that—despite the massive stakes of Tuesday's game—the season didn't end Tuesday night, and they still have 10 games to make up a one-point gap for the final playoff spot. While the 4-3 defeat might not have provided a welcome result, salvaging at least a point was one more demonstration that Detroit will not bow gently out of the wild card fight.
"I don't think satisfying would be the right word," said J.T. Compher after the game. "Resilient still. I think we showed that. Not the start to the third period that we would have wanted, but it's something you gotta learn from. Those big games are a little harder to close out. We can learn from the way we started that third period but we can also build off the resiliency we had to get to overtime."
"The one [point] is big," said Larkin. "They got two. It was not what we wanted, but getting one was huge. Played good, and it's a playoff-style game, stuck in there. Wish we had a better start in the third, but they came out and scored two, and we responded. It was back-and forth all night."
The ambivalence of his message suggests that Larkin may still have been processing the game himself, but the fact remains, despite the evening's disappointment, the battle is not yet lost.
The Red Wings will have one more head-to-head chance to make up ground on Washington, but for that game's stakes to match those of tonight's, Detroit will first have to handle business on what remains of its four-game road trip, all against opponents with secure places in the playoff picture—Carolina, Florida, and Tampa.
Though he was generally pleased with his team's effort for the evening, Lalonde said, "We're gonna need to be even better with the type of competition we've got coming up on the road here." Given the difficulty of the remaining schedule, Tuesday represents the final opportunity for talk of process and bright spots to build from. To mark the season's progress with a playoff berth, nothing matters but the final score for the 10 games remaining.