Detroit gets the hot start it had craved, absorbs a Columbus surge, and rebounds for a vital two points before traveling to Sweden

On Saturday afternoon, the Detroit Red Wings dispensed with the Columbus Blue Jackets by a 5-4 scoreline at Little Caesars Arena.

It was neither a pretty nor dominant victory but rather a necessary and cathartic one. Over the course of 60 minutes of hockey, there were signs of fragility and vulnerability, but there was also resilience and in the end a desperately important two points before the Red Wings ship off to Sweden this evening.

The game swung on a second-period goal from Detroit's resident sniper, Alex DeBrincat, after his team earned an early lead only to let it slip away under a twenty minute period of Blue Jacket pressure to close the first and open the second.

The Red Wings got out to the start they'd envisioned—scoring the game's first goal for the first time in eight games, then tacking on a second to make it 2-0 within five minutes.  They were the faster team out of the gate, they created chances with an aggressive forecheck, and they converted on those chances.  First, it was Lucas Raymond with a clever cutback below the goal line to catch Blue Jackets' goaltender Spencer Martin wandering from his post.

Then, Robby Fabbri, stationed just beyond the top of the crease, banged in a Christian Fischer pass from below the goal line.

However, hardly a minute on from Fabbri's 2-0 goal, Alexandre Texier slipped behind the Detroit defense and deposited a breakaway goal past Ville Husso.  Though the Red Wings maintained a lead, Texier's goal seemed to reduce them to a collective wobble, the confidence behind the hot start wavering.

With just under two minutes to play in the first, rookie centerman Adam Fantilli batted a loose puck out of the air past a scrambling Husso to tie the game.  To make matters worse, Sean Kuraly danced around Jeff Petry and beat Husso five minutes and 41 seconds into the second to give the Jackets a 3-2 lead.

The restlessness in Little Caesars Arena was palpable—players and fans alike seeming to dismay at another winnable game beginning to slip through Detroit's collective fingers.

Then, DeBrincat—who hadn't scored himself in eight games—breathed life back into his team by beating Martin with a lethal, one-timed wrister over the goaltender's glove-side shoulder.  Jeff Petry helped make the play happen with his hustle and awareness to beat a pair of Blue Jackets to a loose puck in the corner and send an incisive feed off the wall into DeBrincat, lurking in soft ice in the slot.

"Great f***ing pass," mouthed DeBrincat as he extended an emphatic pointer finger toward Petry.  For the scorer and his team, the goal carried with it a sense of catharsis; DeBrincat's dry spell was over, and, in scoring, he'd pulled his team out of a case of afternoon doldrums, doldrums that had flared up after Detroit's fast start to the game and in which the team had been mired for the two games previous.  

"The good thing that Alex has been doing is he's been getting looks," said Derek Lalonde after the game. "If skill and a natural scorer like that keeps getting looks, it's gonna go in for him. Obviously, it was really important at the time, because we're playing well, but we're trailing 3-2. You could feel maybe a little frustration starting to build on the bench, so it was just a much-needed goal."

The goal seemed to remind Detroit of its capabilities, and two minutes and 18 seconds later, it begat another.  

This time, Daniel Sprong and Klim Kostin combined to capitalize on a poorly executed Columbus breakout—Sprong beating Martin with a glove-side wrist shot.  The Red Wings were back in front, and their 4-3 advantage would hold through the conclusion of the second.

Detroit opened the third with a power play after Erik Gudbranson airmailed the puck over the glass on the final play of the second.  The Red Wings didn't convert, but 33 seconds after Gudbranson's minor expired, Detroit found the insurance goal it craved.

It was a simple and ugly forechecking goal—precisely what the Red Wings needed.  Jake Walman threw the puck toward the net after Detroit had dumped in, gotten an initial chance, then retrieved the rebound.  Walman's shot deflected wide but took a robust carom off the end boards and banked home.  Fabbri was initially credited with the marker, but it was in fact Walman's.

With a two-goal cushion once again, Detroit's confidence appeared restored—even if the game was far from over.

If DeBrincat's goal swung the game, it was a shot block from Fabbri that encapsulated the Red Wings' effort on the evening.  

With the Red Wings nursing that two-goal lead, Blue Jackets sniper Patrik Laine had net to shoot at after the puck worked East to West to him along the flank to Husso's right.  However, a sprawling Fabbri made the save of the game, getting his right foot in the way of Laine's formidable one-timer.  Despite being fresh from the injured list, Fabbri had no reservations about putting his body on the line to preserve his team's margin.

"That line was excellent," said Lalonde of Fabbri, Joe Veleno, and Fischer's performance.  "All three just hunt the puck, get above it, creating turnovers, zone time. That second goal our team scored to make it 2-0—what an identity goal. Those guys were on the forecheck, they hunted it, they had a Grade A. Fabs just misses it, they get back on top of it, and he puts it in the back of the net a few seconds later."

With eight-and-a-half minutes to play, Fabbri's block became even more important when Laine did manage to slip a shot over Husso's shoulder to bring the game to 5-4.  However, the Jackets wouldn't pose much more of threat to the Detroit crease in the game's waning minutes, and the sound of the horn left the Red Wings victorious.

It wasn't the overwhelming victory Detroit might have wanted against a struggling Columbus team.  This afternoon's game was far from 60 minutes of dominance from the home side.  The Red Wings got the start they wanted, then managed to absorb some Blue Jacket haymakers.  Columbus' push back in the late stages of the first and early second might have forced doubts back into the mind of a Red Wing team that had lost back-to-back and three of four.  

However, DeBrincat's goal restored the good feelings that had accompanied his team's hot start to the season, and it spurred enough momentum to see Detroit on to victory.  In the end, there was nothing more important for the Red Wings than two points before heading off to Sweden, and thanks to DeBrincat, Fabbri, and company, the Red Wings skated off with those two points in hand. 

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