Boston flexes its muscle and rides a fast start to a 4-1 win over the Red Wings, who have now dropped three games in a row after a scoring start to the new season
On Saturday night in Boston, the Red Wings fell by a 4-1 final score to the Bruins in an outing that served to remind Detroit of the might that rules over the Atlantic Division. With the defeat, the Red Wings drop to 5-3-1 on the season, having lost three straight.
The Bruins played an overwhelming first period from which Detroit could never quite recover.
Boston out-shot the Red Wings 15-7, out-attempted them 24-14, and scored a power play goal while denying a pair of Detroit power play chances. By the time the two teams skated off for the first intermission, the Bruins boasted a 2-0 lead.
The biggest differentiator in that opening 20 minutes was Boston's ability to drive quality offense. Per the Bally Spots Detroit broadcast, the Bruins claimed a 12-2 advantage in slot shots in the game's opening period.
Boston's opening goal came with Michael Rasmussen in the box for boarding, and it illustrates Detroit's difficulties in controlling the area immediately around Ville Husso's crease.
After it appeared the Red Wings might escape the power play unscathed, Brad Marchand threw a centering pass to the front for James Van Riemsdyk. Both Detroit defensemen converged on Van Riemsdyk (who couldn't get much, if anything, on Marchand's pass), and Pavel Zacha pounced unabated by any of the Red Wings' penalty killers on the rebound—tapping home the game's first goal.
Less than five minutes later, defenseman Charlie McAvoy doubled the Bruins' lead, picking up a loose puck along the half-wall to the right of Husso and slashing across the goal mouth before squeezing a stuff attempt through the Finnish goaltender.
Once again, the Red Wings were far too generous in allowing their hosts access to the front of the net, but it was also a puck Husso got a lot of but proved unable to keep out.
If there had been any doubt in Detroit's collective mind as to whether the Patrice Bergeron-less Bruins remained a formidable Atlantic foe, that doubt was laid to rest by the end of the first period.
In the second, the Red Wings were much stouter defensively, yet Boston's control over the game only seemed to tighten. Detroit cut the Bruins' shot total from 15 nearly in half to just eight. However, the Red Wings still couldn't create anything of consequence offensively against the boa constrictor that was Boston.
At the start of the period, the Bruins' forecheck hemmed Detroit into its own end for long stretches. It took more than six minutes for Andrew Copp to record his team's first shot of the frame.
On the rare occasions when the Red Wings did make a meaningful foray into the offensive third of the rink, Boston proved lightning quick on the counter once they'd righted the ship—promptly driving play back toward Husso.
By the end of the period, Detroit suffered from a surplus of turnovers along the offensive blue line, which only fed the Bruins on the counter-attack. The Red Wings seemed insistent on skating the puck into the offensive zone, rather than dumping it in, and Boston was excellent in rebuffing those attempts.
Instead of gaining the zone with possession, the Red Wings gave the puck back to the Bruins, feeding their transition attack. Neither side scored in the second, and Detroit did improve in its own zone, but Boston appeared as infallible as ever when the horn sounded on the period.
To open the third, the Red Wings played their best hockey of the evening. For the first time all game, Detroit was able to sustain offensive pressure in the front half of the final period.
Joe Veleno marked this occasion by continuing his hot start to the '23-24 campaign and netting a gorgeous goal.
The Quebecois center danced around Brandon Carlo, catching the trundling defenseman flat-footed with a hesitation move, then wired a wrister over Jeremy Swayman's glove-side shoulder. The Boston goaltender hardly reacted to Veleno's quicksilver shot.
With a shade over 13 minutes to play, the Red Wings had arrived in the fight at last and looked well alive for at least one of the two points on offer at T.D. Garden.
Detroit's push continued in the minutes after Veleno's goal then screeched to an abrupt halt when Jake Walman slashed David Pastrnak on a breakaway attempt just over 11 minutes into the frame.
The Czech sniper was granted a penalty shot, and with that opportunity, he showed his skill and style in out-waiting Husso and eventually beating him with a lethal backhand-forehand move.
Whatever momentum the Red Wings had generated from their strong start to the period evaporated as the red flashed. There was still time for a comeback but the sense of opportunity had slipped away.
Six minutes and 22 seconds later, Pastrnak struck again—this time into an empty net with Husso lifted for an extra attacker as Detroit chased a two-goal deficit. The goal sealed the Red Wings' second 4-1 defeat in as many games.
There is no shame in losing to the Bruins. They are just a few months removed from a Presidents Trophy-winning, record-setting campaign, and they've already shown in the season's early days that they remain a power in the Atlantic—regardless of who's playing center for them.
There are even a handful of positives to take from the game, most notably that Detroit got better as the game progressed. The final score looks a bit crooked, but, as much as Boston flexed its muscle, the Red Wings weren't run out of the building. Instead, they were alive and fighting into the latter stages of the third.
In fact, they weren't terribly far from playing a successful road game against an elite opponent—absorbing pressure, surviving moments of danger without suffering an excess of damage, beginning to turn the screws of their own attack when the opportunity presented itself.
However, in the end, it wasn't enough to keep up with the mighty Bruins, and Detroit suffered its third loss in succession.
While it was by no means a result to be ashamed of, the defeat did create an obvious imperative for Monday night's tilt with the Islanders on Long Island—take both points and return to Detroit having rekindled the good feelings that typified the team's start to the season.
The Silky Mitten State
Be sure to check out THN Detroit's new podcast: The Silky Mitten State. I'm joined by Connor Earegood of The Michigan Daily, College Hockey News, and THN's new NCAA site. We'll be chatting Red Wings, college hockey across the state, and anything else related to hockey in Michigan that catches our attention. Be on the look out for a new episode every Friday.
Here's a quick video sample on Lucas Raymond's hot start:
And here's the full episode on Spotify: