Red Wings 3, Stars 6: Detroit Stumbles in First Game Without Larkin
Without Dylan Larkin, the Red Wings fall flat in Dallas, losing 6-3 Monday night
On Monday night at the American Airlines Center in Dallas, the Detroit Red Wings lost 6-3 to the Stars.
For Detroit, the game served as the first test of life without Dylan Larkin (who is expected to miss at least a week), and J.T. Compher, Klim Kostin, and David Perron were also unavailable. Despite those absences, the Red Wings got out to a promising start in Dallas, but a combination of poor goaltending and defensive breakdowns prevented the visitors from sustaining their advantage in the eventual defeat.
Detroit got the game's first goal off the stick of Daniel Sprong, providing a blueprint for what success had to look like for the undermanned Red Wings.
After Detroit killed a Stars' cycle attempt, Sprong lugged the puck from his own zone all the way to the goal mouth. His stuff attempt was forced wide, but Christian Fischer's forechecking ensured the puck remained deep in the Dallas zone. Fischer worked the puck to Robby Fabbri, who played a clever chipped pass back to Sprong. Sprong beat Jake Oettinger from close range, and the Red Wings led 1-0 after just over five minutes.
That formula—killing plays early in the defensive zone, exiting cleanly, then forechecking to create offense—was the Red Wings' path toward remaining competitive despite the absentees.
However, at the 13:35 mark of the period, Miro Heiskanen snuck a shot through heavy traffic (courtesy of Joe Pavelski and Jamie Benn) on the power play to tie the game. The goal exposed two trends that would persist throughout the remainder of the evening: James Reimer's challenges tracking the puck and difficulties with defending the slot.
Because of the screen, a save would have been difficult for any goalie, but Reimer looked uniquely befuddled in his attempts to keep Heiskanen's shot out. Meanwhile, as was the case against the Senators Saturday, the Red Wing penalty kill struggled to clear the crease and get traffic out of its goaltender's field of vision.
Still, all told, the first was shaping up to be a commendable road period for Detroit. At five-on-five, the Red Wings were playing the game they wanted to play—limiting Dallas' chances and finding offense of their own in the process.
However, as the horn sounded to end the first, Reimer yielded a disastrous goal to Stars defenseman Esa Lindell, spotting Dallas a 2-1 lead to conclude the first. Lindell fired a harmless-looking wrist shot from the outer reaches of the offensive zone, and Reimer seemed simply to whiff.
Reimer had not started in nearly a month prior to this evening, so some measure of rust can't be surprising. However, a buzzer-beating freebie was the last thing the undermanned Red Wings needed after a period of generally sound hockey.
In the second period, the unwelcome confluence of a defensive zone turnover, a breakdown in coverage, then a seemingly goaltender contributed to a Jason Robertson goal to put Dallas ahead not long after the midpoint of the second.
Two minutes and 14 seconds later, Matt Duchene capped an extended Stars stay in the Detroit end of the rink by deflecting a Joel Hanley point shot past Reimer to make it 4-1 Dallas with 6:30 to play in the second.
Jonatan Berggren—playing in just his fifth NHL game of the season—showed his hockey sense in pouncing on a rebound to provide a quick rebuttal, cutting the Stars' lead to two just 22 seconds after Duchene's goal. However, Detroit would exit the second still trailing 4-2.
In the third, the Red Wings threatened to make a late comeback when Joe Veleno finished off a zesty power play passing sequence, that saw the puck whipped around the offensive zone in an instant from Patrick Kane to Shayne Gostisbehere to Alex DeBrincat and on to Veleno for a tap-in.
However, 14 seconds after Veleno's goal cut the score to 4-3, Michael Rasmussen was sent to the box for tripping, then 14 seconds after that Joe Pavelski re-directed another power play goal past Reimer to restore the hosts' two-goal cushion. Detroit's hopes of salvaging points from the evening looked slim until Heiskanen hit the empty net with 42 seconds to play, clinging the Red Wings' defeat.
Both defense and goaltending proved problematic for Detroit in the 6-3 loss, and it's not as though the Red Wings enjoyed much offensive thrust either. You can understand it. Missing either Larkin or Compher would be difficult; missing both at once is losing the team's spine, and that's without accounting for Perron or Kostin. Meanwhile, Reimer's long lay-off means some struggles have to be expected, even if Alex Lyon managed to avoid those warts somehow when he made his season debut after an extended period of inaction.
However, the playoff standings don't care for extenuating circumstances, and, with the loss, the Red Wings fall to 14-9-4 for the season. It won't be easy, but to keep pace in the Atlantic, Detroit will need to find a way to summon a more complete performance tomorrow night in St. Lous, on the second leg of a back-to-back.
Also from THN Detroit