Detroit Red Wings
Red Wings Can't "Create Good Bounces" in Home Loss to Bruins
Puck management and a power play lacking initiative doom the Red Wings in a 2-1 home loss to the Boston Bruins
DETROIT—"There's a lot of learning in this game," said Detroit Red Wings captain Dylan Larkin, after his team's 2-1 defeat at the hands of. "I thought we matched their compete. They get the first one, and we respond, then it's a tight game. We ice the puck there, and they get a face-off goal. It's been an area of emphasis for us not to give up those goals, and we did, and that's the difference. Crossbars are crossbars, but you gotta create good bounces for yourself and drive the net."
In the final minute of regulation, defenseman Moritz Seider struck the crossbar with a blast from the point that might have tied the game. With Brad Marchand in the box for hooking and Cam Talbot (whose 27 saves were, despite a sound defensive effort, the biggest reason the game was within reach) lifted for an extra skater, Detroit boasted a six-on-four numerical advantage, and it was the first time all period the Red Wings mounted any sustained pressure on Jeremy Swayman's net.
"Not enough," replied coach Derek Lalonde, when asked whether his team had created the "shot scramble chaos" he'd named as a priority earlier in the week against Boston. "Just off the top of my head, there's some opportunities to get some pucks on net. I do think we consciously tried to get bodies to the net a little bit better. Hitting the post was the one time the goalie didn't have a chance, didn't look at it, didn't see it."
The third period began tied at one, Jeremy Brazeau and Lucas Raymond having exchanged first period goals (the former 8:33 into the night, the latter with 58 seconds remaining in the period). Marchand went on to score the game-winner for the Bruins with 8:30 left in the third. All of which is to say Detroit spent the entirety of the period either looking for a game-winner or an equalizer, and in the time managed exactly four shots on Swayman. Yes, Seider struck the bar, but, to borrow Larkin's phrase, the Red Wings had by then already failed to create the bounces they needed, at which point they were subject to the ones the got.
Per Lalonde, Detroit's "inability probably to manage the puck there in the third. Just couldn't get out of our zone," explained his team's meager third period shot total. "When we're moving north, we're out of our zone, [and] we're a good team." In the final 20 minutes, the Red Wings failed to "move north," instead malingering in their own end—hampered by icings, turnovers, and some Bruin forechecking pressure.
On a night when Detroit played a tight five-on-five game (just five high-danger chances against, per Natural Stat Trick), its power play—the bright spot in a gloomy month of November—sapped momentum. Before the six-on-four, the Red Wings had already failed to convert on three chances on the man advantage. The first came just 23 seconds after Brazeau's opener, an immediate chance to rebut. The following two each offered the chance at a lead in the second period. Instead, the Bruins found life from their success on the kill and rode that momentum into the third.
To Larkin, Detroit's power play wanted for initiative: "We didn't do enough to set up the next guy, and it was all five of us on the ice, we just threw garbage around and let someone else deal with the issues, and they kill hard. They pressure really hard, and we just have to be cleaner and set up the next play. Give someone a good pass, so they can do something with it."
"I just think the power play was slow," offered Lalonde, suggesting the issue lay in tempo. "We had good momentum, and then we'd get on the flank, and it'd just stop. And all it does is allow them to get in position. When we were clicking on the power play, it was tic-tac-toe fast movement. We've gotten back to being very slow on the power play. It's just not gonna be effective."
With just five points separating seventh place from 12th in the East, the wild card picture is muddied, but Saturday offered the Red Wings a chance to leap from the periphery to thick of the race. Instead, it represents another set back in a season in which Detroit's struggled to fire each facet of its game at once.
The Red Wings look a much more organized defensive outfit than they did in California, but now the power play hasn't scored in its last seven tries. The penalty kill has stabilized, but the troubles on the breakout have recurred. At 8-10-2, Detroit sits five points out of a wild card place (the second of which the Bruins hold) and just two points above the Eastern Conference floor. It's a position that reflects the consistency of their game, now 20 games into their 82.
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