The Red Wings fall 4-1 in Philadelphia, with a negative spiral of puck management bringing about their undoing
The Red Wings fall 4-1 in Philadelphia, with a negative spiral of puck management bringing about their undoing
Last night in Philadelphia, the Detroit Red Wings lost 4-1 to the Flyers, falling to 11-14-4 for the season. Forward Scott Laughton scored all four goals for the home team—one five-on-five, one short-handed, and two empty-netters. For Detroit, Laughton's shorty is perhaps the clearest sign of the times—just as the penalty kill finds a moment of relative stability, the power play concedes a goal. At a more macro level, the Red Wings road to defeat was paved by a falloff in puck management as the game progressed.
During the five-game losing streak the Red Wings snapped on Monday, coach Derek Lalonde had been adamant that his team was playing sound hockey, just not converting the chances it needed to win games. Last night in Philadelphia was a different story. As Lalonde told reporters, "Tonight, for stretches of our game, we got away from it, and we got behind, probably got what we deserved."
Per Lalonde, most acutely, Detroit came unraveled in "the 10 minutes in the second where we gave up easy offense—the breakaways, the odd mans...We just got leaning. One thing throughout our ups and downs is we have not given up a lot of dangerous rushes...and that second period, we got loose, and finally they cashed in." Simply put, "We gave up too much."
It was the night where the Red Wings played solid road hockey in the early going, but as the game progressed, Detroit struggled with puck management and began to spend too much time in its defensive zone and leave goaltender Cam Talbot (who was excellent in his return from injury, making 32 saves on 34 shots) vulnerable to repeated odd-man rushes and breakaways. Turnovers prolonged shifts, the Flyers found joy on the cycle, and the Red Wings began to scramble. The end result was a sixth loss in seven games.
In the featured video above, I discussed the role of puck management in the defeat.
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