Red Wings Need Quick Rebound after Humbling Loss in Tampa
After a humbling loss in Tampa characterized by futility at the net front, the Red Wings must bounce back in a hurry ahead of tonight's game vs. the Stars
Last night, the Detroit Red Wings fell 5–1 in Tampa Bay to the Lightning, and today, they'll have to turn things around in a hurry ahead of tonight's game in Dallas against the Stars.
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"It didn't really feel like we spent so much time in our end. We just kinda had some breakdowns when we did," assessed Patrick Kane after the game. "I thought we did some good things as well, getting pucks to the net, getting some chances, the goalie made some big saves. But yeah, just a couple too many breakdowns."
Coach Todd McLellan asserted that the Red Wings' troubles came from a lack of conviction around the net at each end of the ice.
"I think you can get very fooled by our 40 shots or whatever it was," the coach told reporters after the game. "We want to be a volume shooting team, and we were tonight, but we had zero presence in and around their net. And a guy like Vasilevskiy, when he sees it, he's gonna have zero problem stopping it. We had maybe two or three screened shots, two or three quick rebounds...At the other end of the rink, you just look at their first goal, our net play was not where it needed to be. Even the second on the penalty kill, our net play was poor...It's something we have to clean up."
McLellan also pointed out that Detroit was "probably getting a little spoiled here expecting two and three [power play goals] a night, and that's not the way it works in this league." Last night, when the Lightning limited them to 1-for-6, the Red Wings failed to come up with the five-on-five offense they needed to compensate and conceded two goals to the Bolts PP in three tries.
If there was one silver lining to the defeat, it's that Detroit did manage to give Alex Lyon (who relieved Cam Talbot in goal after the second period) a bit of a runway to ease back into his return from injury with 20 minutes of action ahead of his start tonight against the Stars.
"We talked about it in the second period, getting Alex some work before tomorrow night," explained McLellan of the choice to lift Talbot. "He's gonna play tomorrow night in Dallas, but we wanted Talbs to finish and Alex to go in with a bit of a warm-up and stretch and that type of stuff instead of going in cold."
Unsurprisingly, the coach wasn't interested in using the back-to-back as an excuse for another poor performance this evening, especially considering the Stars also played last night: "We can clarify that right now: both teams lost, both teams played back-to-back, both teams had to travel. And I think they're playing three in four as well, so all those excuses can go out the window. They're not gonna hear any of that from the coaching staff, and it's another one of those unique opportunities that the new coaches have to see how we're gonna respond."
As Lucas Raymond summated after the loss last night, "We didn't reach our standard by any means, and it's on us. We need to come prepared in every game...Good thing we've got a new chance tomorrow."
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