Patrick Kane set resilient tone before Ben Chiarot settled a back-and-forth game for good in overtime as Detroit wrapped up a successful road swing
Patrick Kane set resilient tone before Ben Chiarot settled a back-and-forth game for good in overtime as Detroit wrapped up a successful road swing
With six and half minutes remaining in the first period of Monday's matinee between Seattle and the visiting Kraken, Patrick Kane provided the clearest example of what would prove the game's motif—Detroit persistence paving a path to victory.
Upon gaining the offensive zone, Kane bisected four different Kraken with a pass that is the envy of 99% of the NHL, whipping the puck through the heart of Seattle's defense from the right half-wall to the opposite face-off circle for an Alex DeBrincat one-time chance. DeBrincat's shot sailed wide of Joey Daccord's net, but the rebound filtered back to Kane.
His first set-up bid unsuccessful despite its ambition and execution, Kane tried a simpler pass, teeing up a Moritz Seider one timer from the point, which found its mark. Kane had his 800th career assist, kept his now five-game point streak since returning from injury in tact, and the Red Wings had a 1-0 lead in the late stages of the first period.
The road from Seider's opener to an eventual 4-3 overtime victory would prove a winding one, but Kane's model—moment of brilliance, adversity or rebuttal from the Kraken, find an alternative solution—would prove replicable over the course of 61 minutes and seven seconds of hotly contested hockey.
The game was a back-and-forth one between a pair of teams with a similar faith that success lies in the expression of depth. Both teams had moments of applying sustained pressure and moments when only goaltending saved them from slipping out of the fight. By the end of the night, the Red Wings established four different leads, though only the last of those would hold.
The game's punch-counterpunch narrative arc was in place by the end of the first, with Jared McCann answering Seider's opener with one minute and 32 seconds to play in the period. In the second, Lucas Raymond gave Detroit another lead, only for McCann to respond once more within four minutes. Daniel Sprong finished off a Christian Fischer two-on-one feed to put the Red Wings ahead late in the second, but Jaden Schwartz erased that advantage early in the third.
Perhaps the pinnacle of Detroit's resistance came in the final minutes of regulation. With the game clock showing 1:44 remaining in regulation, Olli Maatta took an ill-advised cross-checking penalty, providing Seattle with a shimmering opportunity to claim its first lead of the afternoon.
Instead, the Red Wing penalty kill warded off that chance, allowing the Kraken just two shots on goal, both of which Alex Lyon turned aside. Lyon too embodied the persistence that characterized and enabled Detroit's victory, stopping 38 of 41 shots he faced after the 31-year-old backstop was given the night off in Calgary on Saturday to reset after an unfortunate start to his road trip.
After Maatta was liberated from the penalty box 16 seconds into overtime, it took the Red Wings less than a minute to find the goal they needed to establish a lead the Kraken couldn't counter. Raymond's hustle won possession for Detroit off a wayward Seattle breakout pass, the Red Wings reset in the neutral zone, then Raymond and Dylan Larkin combined to lead a rush that culminated in an OT winner from Ben Chiarot.
At yesterday's practice, vociferous Quebecois winger David Perron opined that "I think you look at any [road] trip, any time you can go .500 or more, it can be good, and that's what our focus is on tomorrow." Thanks to Chiarot's goal, the Red Wings emerged from their trip west with a 2-2-0 record.
This trip began with two humbling defeats—a third-period blow up in Edmonton and a lifeless performance in Vancouver. The two victories that followed—in Calgary and then in Seattle—were seldom pretty, but as J.T. Compher said yesterday, "it's good to win games when you're not at your best."
In that regard, beating the Kraken was a playoff-style victory—˘battling major oppositional push back, needing to overcome moments of vulnerability, and finding the strength to summon the goals and saves necessary to secure a result. With the road trip now complete and successful, Detroit can securely say that it's playoff hopes have passed another test.
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