Red Wings 6, Penguins 3: Detroit and DeBrincat Stay Hot

Detroit, MI—"Czarny makes a great play and then hits me back door. I'm just standing there. I don't even see the puck," says a self-effacing Alex DeBrincat when asked about his hot start to the season after the Detroit Red Wings 6-3 victory over the Pittsburgh Penguins at Little Caesars Arena Wednesday night.  

The Farmington Hills-born winger is describing his first goal of the evening, and, if he is to be believed, Austin Czarnik deserves all the credit—"He puts it right on my stick. So, you know, it's been a lot of that." 

As he sits down to the podium to address the press, DeBrincat is just a few minutes removed from a two-goal, three-point performance that propelled him to the top of the NHL's scoring table with five goals and three assists to his name on the young season.  His hometown Red Wings have improved to 3-1-0 and remain unbeaten at home.

"Can't get too satisfied," DeBrincat adds, another attempt at modesty and perspective.

You can see his point.  It has after all been just four games.  And yet it's hard for anyone with a passion for the Winged Wheel crest to witness what DeBrincat and Detroit have accomplished over the first 4.8% of the regular season without getting just a little bit carried away.

After the game's first minute, it appeared a reality check might be in store for the up-and-coming Red Wings.  Evgeni Malkin entered the offensive zone utterly unabated by Detroit pressure, played a give and go with line-mate Reilly Smith, and proceeded to fire the game's opening into a yawning net past a helpless Ville Husso.  1-0 Penguins, 53 seconds played.

"Just a really poor mishap on the first goal against for whatever reason," said head coach Derek Lalonde after the game. "We have a neutral zone designed to have numbers back and a nice gap. For whatever reason, we backed off, and we gave Malkin—maybe the hottest player in the league right now—an unbelievable poor gap, and of course he gets easy entry, he gets East-West, and before you know it, it's in the back of our net. So that was on us."

To Red Wing teams of the not too distant past, the early 1-0 deficit to a team of Pittsburgh's pedigree might not have felt insurmountable, but it would certainly have carried with it a sense of deflation.

Instead, slowly but surely over the course of the first, Detroit inched its way back into the game before a second period offensive crescendo lifted the Red Wings into a 4-1 lead after 40 minutes.

As Andrew Copp observed, Detroit didn't lose its nerve after the gaffe that enabled Malkin's opening salvo, instead allowing timely goaltending to begin to forge a path back into the game.

"Give one up early against a team like that, where it can get out of hand quick.  Huss made some big saves and just kinda stuck with it and had confidence that over the course of 60 minutes we're gonna crawl ourselves back into the game," Copp told the press.

The aforementioned DeBrincat goal from Czarnik nullified the Penguin lead not quite 12 minutes after Malkin's tally.  Czarnik slipped past Chad Ruhwedel at the blue line and cut in on Pittsburgh goaltender Tristan Jarry, before leading a pass in for DeBrincat at the back post, which required nothing more than a simple re-direct to find the back of the net.

The Red Wings exited the first with the score level at one, and, in the second, three different Detroit lines created goals to carve out a 4-1 lead.

The first leg of that three-goal volley came off the tape of Ben Chiarot, five minutes and 21 seconds into the second.  Dylan Larkin darted into the offensive zone, pulled up, shook loose the Penguin defenseman marking him (Pierre-Olivier Joseph), and cut to the middle.

He sent a pass across the point to Ben Chiarot, who had activated along the weak side.  Chiarot took a touch to gather the puck, then fired a wrister off his front foot that snuck through traffic and past Jarry to give the Red Wings their first lead of the evening.

10 minutes later, Andrew Copp doubled the lead by tipping a Jeff Petry point shot past Jarry.  

Two minutes and seven seconds after Copp's goal, David Perron made it 4-1 Detroit, pouncing on the rebound of a Larkin shot from the slot on the power play.  

"At any shift, at any point, it feels like we can get one in," said Copp after the game.  "I just feel like a goal could come from any line at any point.  I think that gives you some confidence, even more to play the right way.  Because you know if you don't give up much, you know we're going to find our chances with the group that we have."

That's right.  The same Red Wings who finished 24th in the NHL a year ago suddenly find themselves assured in their ability to find goal scoring up and down the line-up.  Five-on-five or on the power play, off the rush or on the cycle, it doesn't seem to matter; the Detroit Red Wings are scoring in bunches.

In the third period, Detroit's command of the game wavered momentarily, only to be re-stored by still more scoring.  

With a goal before the period was four minutes old, Erik Karlsson ensured the game wouldn't turn into a laugher, and 13:03 into the frame, Bryan Rust turned up the temperature even further by tipping home a Karlsson shot from the point.

As the clock ticked under two minutes, with Detroit nursing a 4-3 lead, Penguins coach Mike Sullivan lifted Jarry for an extra skater in hopes of completing the turn around.

Instead, Copp and DeBrincat drowned out Pittsburgh's third period push with empty netters just 21 seconds apart.  The Red Wings held on for a 6-3 win on home ice, improving to 3-1-0.

For Copp, there is an undeniable sense of confidence pervading the Detroit dressing room, even in the recognition that this season's ultimate goals remain far in the distance.

"That swagger comes in when you walk into the game all 82 saying we're gonna win tonight," said the Ann Arbor-born University of Michigan product.  "You kinda get that feeling in the room and feeling during the game.  We got some swagger about us.  We're not there yet, but we kinda wanna keep that quiet to ourselves because the loud ones usually end up not winning."

To Lalonde, the source of the Red Wings strong form is no mystery; it is a direct by-product of the work the team put in during the preseason.

"It just feels like a continuation from a really productive camp, and I think we've played four pretty good games," said the second year head coach. "Not perfect, even tonight, we had some simple mistakes in our game that led to some pretty easy offense, but again, on the whole, just think it's a good stretch of four games coming off a really good camp."

No, they haven't accomplished anything yet.  Yes, it's only been four games.  But, all the same, the Detroit Red Wings are an outfit equally deep and confident—assured in their ability to thrive when playing to their structured identity and holding faith that the goals will come from somewhere (probably at least one from number 93) if only they stick to the plan.  

It's nothing worthy of a banner, and it can't be for at least another 78 games, but it's progress, and it's exciting.  And that's not to be discounted, even in October.