DETROIT—For the Detroit Red Wings, a second straight match-up with an established contender hamstrung in its present incarnation by injury yielding a second straight victory Sunday night.  After knocking off the Sebastian Aho and Jordan Staal–less Carolina Hurricanes Friday, the Red Wings beat the defending Stanley Cup champion Florida Panthers—absent arguably their three best and most important forwards in Matthew Tkachuk, Aleksander Barkov, and Sam Reinhart—Sunday to keep pace in the Eastern Conference wild card race as the season reaches its final decisive stages.

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With the win, Detroit has now taken seven of the last eight points available to it, and there will be no asterisks or end notes in the final standings explaining which players were available for which games, nor is there any need to apologize for achieving the necessary result.  For the Red Wings, the two biggest factors in Sunday's victory were goaltender Cam Talbot and sniper Alex DeBrincat.

Talbot made 32 saves to secure the victory for the Red Wings, none bigger than the last of that bunch.  In a sequence eerily reminiscent of the final seconds of Detroit's 2–1 win over the Bruins on Mar. 29, Panthers forward Mackie Samoskevich (who'd scored to cut the Detroit lead to 2–1 some 40 seconds earlier) sent a cross-seam pass to Anton Lundell, who hammered a would-be equalizer on net, only for Talbot to deny him with his glove.

"I can't tip my hat to him enough," said coach Todd McLellan of Talbot.  "Good goaltending gives you an opportunity. It doesn't have to be every save, but it has to be the saves, and he made a couple of those tonight again."

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DeBrincat, meanwhile, missed his two easiest chances of the game.  The first game on a second period power play, having been teed up for what looked to be a wide-open net by longtime running mate Patrick Kane only to send his one timer wide.  The second came with the Florida net empty when DeBrincat sent a shot that could have clinched the result of the iron.

The good news for DeBrincat is that, despite the two misses on what looked to be lay-ups, the pint-sized sniper found his way to the scoresheet anyway, roughly 30 seconds after the missed one timer.  After the Panthers cleared and the Red Wings worked their way back to the offensive zone, DeBrincat took a pass from Lucas Raymond and wired home a wrist shot for his 35th goal of the year.

A year ago, DeBrincat's first season home in Detroit showed flashes of his gifts as a scorer as well as the feistiness that underlies his skill, but his oscillations between hot streaks and slumps left consistency to be desired.  In '24-25, he has been arguably the Red Wings most reliable forward—with Kane or without him, on the power play or at five-on-five, off the rush and on the forecheck.  In all phases of play, DeBrincat has been effective.

"A lot more puck luck this year for sure, and I think just consistency in my play," the Farmington Hills—born forward reflected after Sunday's game.  "I think I had quite a few dips in my play last year, and this year just trying to do a better job of being consistent. Just work hard even when it's not going in, and find a way to get to the net and put 'em in."

Meanwhile, McLellan lauded DeBrincat's effort away from the puck and "ability to break plays up and work coming back," adding, "sometimes in some of those scorers there's a cheat element and not a total commitment to the return to your own end play. I don't see that with Cat.  I think it's their all the time."

Over the last four games, the Red Wings have fought from the brink of elimination back to a place of hope.  After each win, they blare Pearl Jam's "Alive" through the locker room speakers, Eddie Vedder's raspy existentialism reminding them of their status and its precarity all at once.

"You can't get too high, you can't get too low...but you can also take momentum from this game and just keep trying to build and build and build," said Talbot, when asked about navigating the emotion of the late season.  "And the confidence that comes with the wins, you just want to continue to play with that confidence."

In their post-game comments, Talbot and DeBrincat—the evening's heroes—were in lock step on one point in particular: Tuesday night's game in Montreal (presently laying claim to the wild card spot Detroit covets) will be the biggest of the season.  If the Red Wings can keep singing after that contest, their playoff dreams will be more alive than they've been at any point since the start of a trying March.

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