Tuesday night at Little Caesars Arena, the Detroit Red Wings will host the Carolina Hurricanes, with the home team looking to put an early end to its present two-game losing streak. Here's what you need to know ahead of the evening's action.
McLellan on "the 48-Hour Game"
The Red Wings are emerging from a unique moment in the season, the two-game home-and-(outdoor) home with the Blue Jackets. Detroit dropped both games in regulation to a direct wild card rival, yet the Red Wings believe (not without justification, considering the way they tilted the ice in their favor Saturday) there are positives to glean from the team's performance in the second game.
When asked by The Hockey News whether he'd learned anything about his team from that two-game set with Columbus, coach Todd McLellan answered in the affirmative, lauding his team's response to what had unquestionably been a lackluster effort last Thursday at LCA.
"When we talked as a staff [Monday] morning, I thought the second game was a 48-hour game for us. And what do I mean by that? We were obviously not who we wanted to be in game one. We just didn't play well, flat out, man to man. And we had to wait almost 48 hours to get that next chance, and there were some honest conversations we had, there was some video, there was a good practice, and then the distraction of the outdoor game...All those variables went into play, and I thought we played a hell of a game in Columbus...We lost, we gave up five goals, [or] four, [because] the empty netter is irrelevant in my mind, but four goals, that's too many. And yet that 48-hour game was real good for us to go through it."
Forward J.T. Compher also lauded his team's response Saturday to the poor performance Thursday. As for what Detroit did to rack up a 46-21 advantage in shots over the course of the evening, Compher told THN, "It starts with the legs, skating, and that can be on the forecheck or into our zone to break the puck out. I think our legs were moving, and we had the mentality that when we were in the O zone we were gonna shoot it, and we were gonna battle to get it back."
Tuesday night, the Red Wings will look to stick to their Stadium Series process but derive a different result against the Hurricanes.
Red Wings Stunned Late, Drop Stadium Series to Columbus 5–3
The <a href="https://thehockeynews.com/nhl/detroit-red-wings/">Detroit Red Wings</a> spent most of Saturday night's Stadium Series game against the Blue Jackets at Ohio Stadium in Columbus chasing. They never led, and, after Denton Mateychuk scored the opening goal five minutes into the second period, Detroit couldn't manage to stay tied for so much as four minutes running.
Lineup
Tuesday morning's skate at LCA was an optional for the Red Wings and thus did not feature line rushes. However, McLellan indicated in his post-skate comments that Detroit would be rolling with the same lineup they did Saturday, with Alex Lyon taking over the net for Cam Talbot after Talbot had started three straight.
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Matching the Canes' Aggression
Tuesday night is the Red Wings' first meeting with Carolina of the season, but a year ago, the Canes took all three games between the two sides, each by a more commanding margin than the last.
Carolina can arguably claim the NHL's clearest identity under coach Rod Brind'Amour: ultra aggressive in all three zones and eager to shoot from any angle. As McLellan laid it out this morning, "They play four lines and six defensemen of the same type of hockey over and over and over again. The pre-scout is not a difficult one; it's the actual action of playing against them that makes it difficult. Rod's done a really good job of creating that, and they've found good players to complement it, so they pose some problems that maybe other teams don't. Their forecheck and their volume shooting makes a big difference, but I'd like to think that we're prepared for that."
So, how to combat the Hurricanes' attempts at sowing chaos? According to Tyler Motte, that begins with replicating it.
"You gotta match their aggressiveness for sure," Motte told THN after morning skate. "You gotta have close support getting out of our zone. Obviously they're an aggressive team on the forecheck, D are aggressive—they stay up, they stay in it—and you've got to be able to break pressure. Sometimes that's gonna mean just getting pucks up and out breaking the pressure; sometimes it's gonna be making a couple passes. But again, it starts with matching the intensity and matching the aggressiveness...You've got to be able to break their pressure and apply a little bit of your own."
Motte pointed out that the Canes require an opponent to be attuned to their location on the ice and the duration of their shift at all times. "It's really about managing the game," he explained. "There's times where we can get up into plays and have our D up as well, trying to get stalled pucks on our own forecheck and make them defend for a little longer than they're used. That way, you can win a shift by wearing them down in the D zone so they don't have the energy to get up and be aggressive at the other end of the ice."
Tuesday night will be the first time the McLellan-coached Red Wings take on Brind'Amour's Hurricanes. Detroit will be looking for a different results to last year's three defeats.
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