Red Wings 5, Golden Knights 2: Copp, Lyon Power Playoff Style Victory Over the Defending Champs
Defense, depth scoring, and goaltending power Detroit to a 5-2 victory over the reigning Stanley Cup champion Vegas Golden Knights
Mandatory Credit: Rick Osentoski-USA TODAY Sports - Red Wings 5, Golden Knights 2: Copp, Lyon Power Playoff Style Victory Over the Defending ChampsDetroit, MI—Like most of the Detroit Red Wings' January success, the decisive goal started in the defensive zone. Andrew Copp deadened a point shot from Alec Martinez and set the rush in motion. It wasn't a graceful rush, but it was a fruitful one.
Copp worked the puck out of the zone to Michael Rasmussen. Rasmussen couldn't quite receive the pass cleanly, fumbling it slightly as he worked through neutral zone but corralling it in time to gain the offensive zone. Rasmussen then returned a pass to Copp streaking across the slot, who fired first time past Logan Thompson.
The goal put Detroit ahead 4-2 in the third period over the visiting Vegas Golden Knights, a margin that would swell to 5-2 with 1:30 to play when Dylan Larkin hit the empty Vegas net (another goal that began with a shot block).
It gave Copp 10 goals for the season, making him the 10th Red Wing to hit that threshold for the season. It's the same formula that's propelled Detroit throughout the month of January: Defense, depth scoring, and, of course, Alex Lyon in goal.
"It's been a huge month, and we've been playing to an identity, and we've won gams where we've shut the other teams down," assessed Larkin after the game. "We've won games in many different ways...It feels good, and we have a good thing going on in our room."
When asked what's allowed the Red Wings to do close out tight games effectively throughout the month's hot spell, Larkin pointed immediately toward Lyon, sitting beside him at the post-game podium and having just made 28 saves.
"This guy has been making big save after big save," Larkin said of Lyon. "Newsy always talks about defending, not allowing their third, and we'll get our fourth, and that's exactly what happened tonight."
From a tactical stand point, Derek Lalonde explained that closing out Vegas was a matter of finding a way to arrest the Knights' familiar pattern of offensive zone play—cycling pucks from low to high in the zone and firing away.
To stymy that attack, Lalonde explained that the Red Wings had to "be a little more aggressive on shutting down shooting lanes, get in the way of some shots, and be a little bit better with our box outs." And that's what they did.
Now 9-2-1 in the new year, Lalonde's team is now five points clear of the New York Islanders for the eighth and final playoff spot in the Easter Conference.
When asked about the strides Detroit has taken this month, Lyon was quick to point out the perils of getting too comfortable with so much hockey left to play, saying "this league is a lot about confidence and mentality, and the second you start to think that you've arrived is, like I say all the time, when things start going the other way."
Still, with each passing victory—this latest another against an opponent with serious playoff bonafides, these Red Wings continue to assert that they might have the "confidence and mentality" it will take to break the franchise's playoff drought. As Lalonde put it, "There's a really good vibe around the group right now, a little of that 'play for the guy next to ya.'"
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