Perron Plays Hero as Red Wings Persevere for 4-2 Win in Tampa and Two Vital Points
Detroit had to suffer Monday against the Lightning, but, in the end, the Red Wings got exactly what they needed: two points
Mandatory Credit: Kim Klement Neitzel-USA TODAY Sports - Perron Plays Hero as Red Wings Persevere for 4-2 Win in Tampa and Two Vital PointsThe goal was to play in games like tonight's—every inch of ice precious, playoff life hanging in the balance—at this time of year, and the idea is to enjoy them. To win Monday night in Tampa, the Red Wings had to suffer, but in the end, the path to victory was simple.
With the game tied at two and under three minutes to play in the third period, J.T. Compher won an offensive zone face-off, Moritz Seider fired a point shot, and David Perron—who made straight for the net when the puck was dropped—buried the rebound. The most rudimentary form of offensive zone hockey executed for the cost of a few shots to the back and one across the ankle.
Perron pumped his fist, dropped his stick, and slammed himself into the glass in a celebration that matched the intensity of the moment. He'd provided a 3-2 Detroit lead that would stretch to 4-2 with a Lucas Raymond empty-net goal a minute and 37 seconds later. And by that margin, the Red Wings secured precisely what they'd needed from Tampa: two points.
The road to those two points didn't matter. There could be no positives to be gleaned without them. To reclaim any sort of agency in what remained of the season, Detroit had to have both, and, thanks to Perron, they had them.
"You wanna come through, but I think many guys came through," Perron said after the game when asked about his performance. "Guys blocking shots, being physical, winning every single puck battle on the wall, getting pucks in deep. There's different situations for that. It could be our defensemen are tired, have been out there for a while, [and] you're playing against the top line on the other side. These are things that haven't been talked about recently a lot over the last several years, but this is what winning hockey looks like, and that's why we're staying with our program right here."
Perron's effort alone wasn't enough for the win, but to get those two vital points, the Red Wings followed Perron's example, with the Quebecois winger—as he has been since he arrived in Detroit—an exemplar for all the qualities he named. On Monday night, winning looked like David Perron—eyes wide and fiery behind his dark visor, arms around his teammates, letting loose a scream of triumph.
To get to that late third period deadlock, the Red Wings had to spend most of the first period defending. On the game's first shift, Tampa's first line of Brandon Hagel, Anthony Cirelli, and Steven Stamkos got the puck behind Detroit and got to forechecking. The Lightning would proceed to spend the bulk of the first period in the offensive zone, where they would possess the puck for most of the game's first three minutes and 22 seconds before Austin Czarnik was assessed a hooking minor.
The Red Wings killed off the minor, in no small part thanks to the efforts of Simon Edvinsson, who was physical below the goal line to win battles and took advantage of his reach to disrupt attempted passes across the slot. However, the successful kill did little to generate momentum for Detroit; instead, after Czarnik was liberated, Tampa remained in the Red Wing third of the rink.
10 minutes into the night's action, the Lightning had an 8-3 advantage in shots on net, though to Detroit's credit, the Red Wings did well to limit Tampa's ability to create chances from the slot. Just past the midpoint of the period, Lucas Raymond tripped Nikita Kucherov, and the Lightning returned to the power play. A Kucherov slot pass left Nick Paul with a wide-open chance at the back door, but Paul couldn't bury the chance, which was Tampa's best opportunity of the power play. The game would remained tied through the conclusion of the opening period.
37 seconds into the second, Detroit grabbed the game's first goal thanks to a blend of grit and skill, in keeping with the evening's formula for success. Alex DeBrincat forced a turnover at the offensive blue line as the Lightning tried to break out, then setting up a blast from Larkin, which Vasilevskiy gloved down but couldn't control. Patrick Kane was first to the rebound and, as he drifted off to the corner, buried it with a perfectly placed backhand, beating Vasilevskiy at the near post.
Just over three minutes later, the Lightning appeared to have tied the game with Cirelli driving to the net, fending off Larkin from behind, and sending the puck, along with Alex Lyon and himself, into the net. It was initially signaled as a goal but quickly ruled out after the officials conversed, and Tampa would not challenge.
Within five minutes of the near miss, Cirelli was at the center of another liminal no-goal call. On a short-handed rush with Victor Hedman in the box, Cirelli tucked a backhand between Lyon's legs but Lyon—with help David Perron anchoring his blade behind Lyon's pads—managed to squeeze the puck, and after a replay review, officials determined Perron and Lyon's effort kept it from crossing the goal line.
However, it wouldn't take until the end of Hedman's minor for Cirelli to find a goal that did count at last with a wrister at the end of a counter attack after a failed Detroit zone entry. With his third try proving lucky, Cirelli tied the game at one 8:36 into the second. Technically, it was just one short-handed goal, but it felt like two in short succession, with the threat, then replay bailout, of his earlier try only compounding the sting of the second.
As the second drew to a close, the Red Wings had two outstanding chances to break the tie. A beautiful move from Raymond set up a close range two-on-one with Michael Rasmussen. Raymond tried to pass across for Rasmussen, but instead the puck was deadened by a Lightning stick on the pass attempt, before Vasilevskiy made an authoritative toe save as Rasmussen tried to jam it home.
Then, in the period's final seconds, Christian Fischer beat Vasilevskiy from long range but struck the post, and the second concluded with the game tied at one, with Tampa leading 26-21 by shots on goal.
In the third, Detroit took the lead when Compher fought through a Matt Dumba check along the wall then drove to the net. He lost control of the puck, but Robby Fabbri rewarded Compher's effort by following him to the crease and burying the loose change. As with Perron's game-winner later in the period, Fabbri's goal reinforced springtime hockey's simplest and most enduring lesson: if you want to score, go to the net. You'll have to absorb contact on the way in, but the reward waits for you there.
However, barely two minutes later, Stamkos answered with his signature power play one-timer from the left face-off dot. The Red Wings were left to contemplate Saturday afternoon, on which they'd played admirably in Florida, led in the third, but ultimately fallen in the shootout. Earning one point had been enough to at least stay afloat, but Detroit couldn't settle for just the one again in Tampa, and, thanks to Perron, then Raymond, it didn't.
The margin was thin all night long, but amidst the game's ebbs and flows what remained constant was the Red Wings' effort but also their need for resilience. Detroit had to rally from a short-handed goal again and from a third period go-ahead goal answered. To score, the Red Wings had no choice but to absorb the blows that came from driving to the crease and find the poise to finish anyway.
The journey might not have been fun, but the result—all that mattered for the evening—was beyond all doubt a joyous one. The Detroit bench's reaction to the game-winner made that clear. And, in the end, it was appropriate that the team's hardest worker and modest renown competitor, David Perron, put the Red Wings over the top.
As far back as training camp in Traverse City, Perron made clear that he'd made it his responsibility to keep the team abreast of their status in the Eastern Conference playoff race. "I don't want to just take on a leadership role," he'd said then. "I want to be a guy that does it on the ice too." Perron played both parts Monday night, and thanks to his example and his production, that postseason status remains alive, if precarious, for one night longer.
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