Red Wings 4, Blue Jackets 0: Detroit Rolls Through Columbus

Detroit rides an insatiable forecheck and hot power play to a dominant 4-0 road victory over Columbus

On Monday evening at Nationwide Arena, the Detroit Red Wings steamrolled the Columbus Blue Jackets 4-0, claiming the team's first road victory of the young season and improving their record to 2-1-0.

If last Thursday's loss in New Jersey showed Detroit could skate with one of the league's most dynamic teams and Saturday's win over Tampa in the home opener proved the Red Wings couldn't just hang with the big boys in the Eastern Conference but beat them, Monday's game in Columbus provided a different sort of test.

Without wishing to cast aspersions, the Blue Jackets remain in the preliminary stages of a rebuild—accruing young talent and losing in bunches.  So, if the Red Wings are to take meaningful strides in the East, the challenge becomes taking care of business on enemy ice against what should be an overmatched opponent.

That's exactly what Detroit did Monday night, riding out a back-and-forth start to take control in the first period and never look back.  Though of course the two points are paramount, it felt more significant that the Red Wings looked in utter command for the game's final 50 minutes than merely that they took the result.

In the early going, this evening's affair appeared to follow the rhythm of Detroit's first two games—lots of open ice in transition, back-and-forth chances, and both goaltenders called upon to atone for the turnovers of the skaters in front of them.

That pattern of play was best encapsulated by the game's opening goal—with a Blue Jacket flurry around the Red Wing net precipitating a transition chance the other way, which Shayne Gostisbehere eventually converted for his first goal with Detroit.

The play began in the Red Wing zone, as Kent Johnson one-timed a pass to the back post for Cole Sillinger.  It would've been a tap-in goal were it not for a vital intervention from Gostisbehere.  Olli Maatta recovered the puck and sent a headman pass up for Joe Veleno, who charged through neutral ice and into the offensive zone.

As Veleno rushed wide, it appeared he would have no choice but to force a shot from a hopeless angle or rim the puck around the wall.  Instead, a quick shoulder check revealed that Gostisbehere had hustled into the rush, providing Detroit with a numerical advantage.  Veleno snapped a decisive pass into the slot, and Gostisbehere one-timed the shot home to give the Red Wings a 1-0 lead after 8:51 of hockey.

The defense-to-offense effort from Gostisbehere was impressive enough, but the creative confidence on display from Veleno is perhaps an even more welcome development for the Red Wings.  Given a chance on the third line as opposed to the fourth with J.T. Compher and Andrew Copp, Veleno delivered on the promotion.  

What he turned into a premium chance for an activating Gostisbehere was a play that winds up in a harmless change of possession far more often than not.  For Veleno to anticipate the possibility of hitting Gostisbehere, see the lane open, and strike at the perfect moment reflects a newfound level of confidence and execution in the offensive zone for the Quebecois center.

From Gostisbehere's goal, the Red Wings began to assert themselves with a forechecking game that left Columbus searching for answers and struggling to exit its own end.

Detroit emerged from the period with a 1-0 lead in large part because of the effort of James Reimer—making his Red Wing debut—in net.  The Jackets sent nine shots his way in the first, but it wasn't so much the volume as the quality and chaos Columbus brought his way that made Reimer's performance impressive.  

The Blue Jackets created several moments of net-front chaos, a goal appearing inevitable.  However, Reimer greeted that chaos with a chaos of his own—scrambling, sprawling, and eventually stopping every chance that came his way.  

He was busy in his crease, and he might not have demonstrated technique straight out of goalie school, but Reimer was undeniably sharp.  In contrast to his poor form in San Jose a year ago, the performance provided Detroit fans with another data point suggesting that the off-season acquisitions are paying immediate dividends.

From the drop of the second period, the Red Wings' forecheck was nothing short of ferocious.  They hounded pucks in multiple layers and altogether flummoxed the Blue Jackets.  

For Columbus, just breaking out of the defensive zone for long enough to change appeared a small victory, and the idea of advancing into the Detroit third of the rink was nothing short of fanciful.  By period's end, the Red Wings would rack up a 13-4 advantage in shots on goal.

Seven minutes and 45 seconds into the frame, Michael Rasmussen doubled the Detroit lead off another takeaway forced by the Red Wing forecheck.  Compher picked off a Damon Severson break-out pass at the blue line, then played Rasmussen in on goal.  It took the British Columbian winger three whacks at the puck to get a shot off, but the eventual bid found its mark, and the Red Wings were out to a 2-0 lead.

It wouldn't take even four minutes for Detroit to add to that margin.  With Boone Jenner in the box for cross-checking Gostisbehere, Dylan Larkin found a rare rush power play goal to make it 3-0 Red Wings with the game just past its midpoint.

It was an unusual power play break-out for the Red Wings, with Moritz Seider sending a lead pass for Alex DeBrincat instead of the familiar drop pass Detroit tends to favor to create entries.  Understandably, DeBrincat's shot has gotten most attention in the early days of his Red Wing tenure, but the winger's aptitude for making inside plays in tight spaces is perhaps just as important.

It's not just that DeBrincat handles the puck well enough to wriggle out of a jam, but that he also shows the presence of mind to deploy that tool in service of creating quality offense to the interior of the offensive zone.  On this sequence, Columbus moves to converge on DeBrincat, only for him to slip a pass inside for Larkin to race into a partial breakaway, allowing Larkin to beat Spencer Martin with a tidy forehand-backhand move.

On Larkin's drive to the net, the officials whistled Sean Kuraly for slashing the Detroit captain, which granted the Red Wings a fresh power play as a reward for converting on the minor to Jenner.

On that second opportunity, Detroit's second unit took its turn to find the back of the net.  Andrew Copp tapped in the rebound from a Lucas Raymond effort, and the Red Wings led 4-0 thanks to two power play goals inside of a minute.  It was a simple play, but Raymond did excellent work in asserting himself by working downhill and inside upon receiving a pass from Jake Walman at the point before firing.  

Each side had another penalty to kill before the horn sounded on the second, and both PKs were up to the task.  The teams headed to their respective dressing rooms with the Red Wings boasting a commanding 4-0 lead.

It wasn't an uneventful third period—Detroit had a power play and a penalty shot, Columbus had two power plays of its own, and Erik Gudbranson and Klim Kostin got together for an old school bout following a heavy Kostin hit in open ice—but it was a third period in which there was never even the suggestion of a question to the Red Wings' control.

Each side had 10 shots, and each goaltender was up to the challenge.  Detroit was sound in its structure, unwilling to cough up the kind of easy opportunities that would seem necessary to afford the Blue Jackets a path back into the game.  Meanwhile, as the minutes ticked by, Columbus seemed to begrudgingly accept its fate.

When the final horn sounded, Detroit had claimed its second win in three tries for the '23-24 campaign and delivered its most complete effort of the young season.  James Reimer had earned himself a 23-save shutout, becoming the third goaltender in team history to pull off that feat in his Red Wing debut.

In the team's first match-up with an opponent without serious Stanley Cup (or even post-season) aspirations, Detroit dispensed with the Blue Jackets in the manner you would expect of an ascendant team against a rebuilder.  It didn't have the excitement of Saturday night's thriller over Tampa, and it shouldn't have.

Against Columbus, the Red Wings didn't have to trade back-and-forth punches to hang onto a result; instead, they overcame a sloppy start to seize control within 10 minutes and run with that control for the next 50.  

And, even without the drama of that win over the Lighting, the two points count just the same.  It was those two points Detroit went to Columbus to seize, and they will return home having left not even a glimmer of doubt as to whether they earned them.