Game Notes: Columbus Owns the Net Front, Beats the Red Wings 5–2 in Stadium Series Prelude

The Detroit Red Wings dropped the first end of their two-game set with the Columbus Blue Jackets Thursday evening at Little Caesars Arena, falling by a final score of 5–2.  The defining feature of the game was the Blue Jackets' ability to consistently drive play to the inner slot, from where they took full advantage of the premium chances they created. 

Each of Columbus' four goals was a direct byproduct of its work in an around Cam Talbot's crease.  If it weren't for an excellent individual effort by Talbot, the game could easily have gotten out of hand for the hosts by the end of the first period.  The 37-year-old goaltender made 20 saves on 24 shots, but his 1.15 Goals Saved Above Expected, per MoneyPuck, offers a clearer portrait of the extent to which he kept his team afloat.

If Thursday's game was the preamble to Saturday night's Stadium Series showcase at Ohio Stadium in Columbus, the Red Wings will certainly be looking to strike a different chord to the one they played in Detroit.  In the meantime, here's more on how the Jackets earned the road victory.

The tone of Thursday's game was a unique one.  Given the two sides' immediate proximity in the Eastern Conference wild card race, there could be no doubt the game had playoff implications, and it also showed hints of playoff-style hockey.  However, particularly in the early going, there was also a looseness to both teams' game that felt far more appropriate to the regular season.  As the game wore on, one team tightened up and took control, while the other failed to match its sharpness.

For the Jackets, there was no doubt of the site where asserting control unfolded: the net front. 

In the first period, it didn't take long for the two sides to find themselves engaged in scrums around the crease at both ends of the rink, an early indicator of the import of the ice contested there.  Over the course of the evening, the visitors seized unquestioned command of that territory.

"I felt like [play at the net front] was a big difference," assessed Detroit forward J.T. Compher after the game.  "[Coach] Todd [McLellan] talked about it throughout the game, even as a key before. I feel like both sides, offense and defense, they were pretty hungry in front of the net."

All four non-empty net Columbus goals came from within spitting distance of the crease.  Two were deflections (Kent Johnson and James van Riemsdyk), one came on a quick-hitting passing play from below the goal line to just beyond the blue paint (finished off again by van Riemsdyk), and another came off the rush but thanks to a hard drive to the crease where Sean Kuraly gloved down a rebound and knocked it in from just inches beyond the goal line. 

"Their heaviness was directing pucks to the net and volume shooting and going to the blue paint, so we've worked in practice on some body position and some box outs and some fronting, but if the puck doesn't get there, you don't have to even do that," McLellan said after the game.  "And I thought we did a real poor job of doing some of the hard things tonight: at the blue paint, as I mentioned but also up top...we had opportunities to take a puck to the shin or the angle or to the leg, and it seemed to get by us. That's a little disappointing because you can't go to where this group wants to go to without that being part of it."

Further to McLellan's point, Mortiz Seider noted that there were effectively two paths to negating the offense the Jackets created: blocking the point shots in the first place or tying up sticks around the net.  "Gotta be in the shooting lane in the first place and then we as defenseman, we just gotta pick up sticks," Seider said.  "Either we try to block it or we get a stick on their forward, but we gotta do either one, and they just can't get behind our goal line that easy."  Detroit couldn't manage either Thursday night, and it paid an obvious price for that inability.

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Entering the third period with his team trailing 4–2, McLellan opted to shuffle his lines.  The second unit of Alex DeBrincat, Compher, and Patrick Kane remained together, but McLellan juggled the others.  Dylan Larkin moved to center a line with Elmer Soderblom and Vladimir Tarasenko, while his erstwhile top line running mates—Marco Kasper and Lucas Raymond—joined Jonatan Berggren on a new-look third line.  Finally, Tyler Motte, Joe Veleno, and Christian Fischer comprised a new fourth line.

After the game, McLellan explained that the changes came with hopes of shaking things up from the top down.   "The three of them did not have a good night, so we needed to try something," he said of his original top trio of Kasper, Larkin, and Raymond.

The coach would eventually localize his critique a bit more closely.  "We had some guys missing," he said.  "We're not talking about eight minute players; we're talking about 21, 22-minute players that were missing for whatever reason.  Sometimes that happens.  They'll get a chance at redemption outdoors two nights from now."

That observation prompted a follow-up concerning Larkin in particular, who had an uncharacteristically ineffective night best typified by a first period two-on-one on which he fumbled the puck, unable to shoot or pass on the opportunity.  "I can't beat around the bush: He was missing," McLellan said of his captain.  "He was one of the players that I was talking about.  He's a big boy.  He can handle hearing that.  He's gonna hear it from me tomorrow.  Just a lot of mishandles, unsure plays that he usually makes...We're playing big games, we need our big players to play big games, and we'll need more not only from him but from some others."

There was one obvious exception to the collective languor of the Red Wings forward group Thursday night: Alex DeBrincat.  That performance is by no means aberrant from DeBrincat, who has been by some distance his team's most convincing forward in the four games since the 4 Nations break.

DeBrincat is riding an eight-game point streak, which he extended with the game's opening goal, but he's made a clear habit of influencing games beyond just his signature shot.  He wins pucks along the walls, his movement away from the puck opens up offense for everyone else, and after Talbot suffered a snow shower from a Columbus forward in the second, it was DeBrincat who enforced a zero tolerance policy for such malfeasance toward his team's goaltender.

"If you could take him and rub him against a few of other guys tonight, you'd have a real good chance," McLellan said of the diminutive winger.  "You guys watch how competitive he is on every puck, in every situation.  There's nothing he backs down from.  He plays in traffic.  He's physical on offense, which means when he's got the puck, he's hard to knock off.  He goes to dirty areas to score."

When thinking about the idea of 'driving a line' in the abstract, the temptation is to attribute this quality primarily, if not exclusively, to centers, who are bound to spend more time carrying the puck and thus providing the sort of forward thrust the phrase alludes to.  However, there can be no doubt that DeBrincat has been driving the Red Wings' second line for some time now.  While he can carry the puck himself, that's not his primary strength.  Instead, he's invigorated his line with his effort to hunt pucks back, push play in the right direction, and finish off the opportunities that come.

As McLellan noted, if Detroit can get a few more performances like DeBrincat's, the Red Wings should have no trouble reversing Thursday's result come Saturday.

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