Red Wings 5, Sabres 3: Diverse Attack and Alex Lyon Help Detroit Stave Off Late Scare in Buffalo
Detroit survives a late Buffalo push to earn a 5-3 victory at the KeyBank Center Tuesday night
With 1:51 to play on Tuesday night in Buffalo, the Detroit Red Wings were in for a tense close to what had seemed a period prior a light romp over the host Sabres.
Not long after the midpoint of the second, Michael Rasmussen brought a chorus of boos from the KeyBank Center faithful by putting the visitors up 4-0, but three straight Buffalo goals reduced the margin to just one as the end of regulation neared. Complicating matters was a Jake Walman high-sticking minor that left Detroit short-handed to close the game. What followed was closer to survival then dominance.
Dylan Cozens won a draw cleanly, allowing Don Granato to lift his goaltender Eric Comrie for an extra attacker. The four Red Wing skaters—Andrew Copp, J.T. Compher, Moritz Seider, and Ben Chiarot—were left to absorb pressure from the Sabres and their six to four advantage in manpower.
Seider blocked a shot, but Buffalo won the race to the rebound and continued to apply pressure. After the puck swung around the net and fell to the blade of Cozens just beyond the top of the crease, Seider and Chiarot slid as one to deflect Cozens' bid at an equalizer high and wide. The clock showed 1:07 to play.
On the ensuing shift, captain Dylan Larkin—who had been forced to the dressing room earlier in the period after absorbing a hit from Buffalo forward Tyson Jost—clinched the result for his team by hitting the empty net with 46 seconds remaining.
For the second consecutive game, Detroit allowed a comfortable third-period lead to slip into an uneasy finish, but, as they had three nights earlier in Montreal, the Red Wings prevailed nonetheless.
It wasn't a flawless, three-period effort, but in the end, with new and soon-to-be-incorporated addition Patrick Kane watching from above in the press box, Detroit rode a steady forecheck, a diverse attack, and Alex Lyon's steadiness in net to a 5-3 victory over the Sabres.
The Red Wings wasted no time getting into its game with the top line of Dylan Larkin between Joe Veleno and Lucas Raymond enjoyed an extended stay in the Buffalo zone on the game's first shift.
Following the first trio's lead, the rest of the Red Wings continued to apply forechecking pressure. In keeping with the trend of its strong post-Sweden form, Detroit dumped pucks in when necessary, stayed above the Sabres, and forced turnovers via the forecheck.
Though that initial foray into the offensive end proved fruitless, the Red Wings' enterprising forecheck paid dividends in short order. Not quite four minutes into the first, Larkin chipped a puck into the offensive zone for Raymond and Veleno to pursue. Raymond eventually won the puck off the wall and sent a pass toward Larkin in the high slot.
Tage Thompson deflected that pass, causing it to arc into the air before settling on Larkin's blade. Despite the aerial effect, Larkin made no mistake in first-timing a wired finish past Comrie to give Detroit a 1-0 advantage.
Larkin's deft finish provided the lethal blow, but the entire sequence—from the captain's willingness to dump the puck in when a clean entry wasn't available to Raymond and Veleno's dogged pursuit to Raymond's pass from harmless ice to the high-danger slot—required collective commitment to the shared cause of the forecheck.
After the Red Wings established a lead with that forecheck, they proceeded to extend it by diversifying their offensive approach over the ensuing 20 minutes of game action.
Detroit's second goal of the night came through its offensive zone play rather than off the forecheck. With Olli Maatta and Shayne Gostisbehere providing support from behind, David Perron, Andrew Copp, and Robby Fabbri established another extended spell of possession in the Buffalo zone. Perron worked the puck from the wall to Gostisbehere at the point, before joining the defenseman in high ice.
Gostisbehere returned a pass for Perron, who sent the puck down low for Copp. Like Raymond's feed for Larkin about five minutes prior, Copp's centering pass didn't arrive cleanly but found its target nonetheless, allowing Fabbri to chop home the puck from just beyond the crease.
When the first concluded, the visitors still led 2-0, but a late period surge from Buffalo (which seemed to spiral out from a Gostisbehere hooking minor 12 minutes into the frame) showed that the Sabres could cause their guests problems when turnovers mounted and the game became more open, more end-to-end.
However, having scored once off the forecheck and once from the O zone, the Red Wings found the game's next offensive conversion, this time with the man advantage. It was nothing flashy—a puck worked high to low and back high where Seider blasted it home with a screen in front—but it gave Detroit a 3-0 lead five minutes and 43 seconds into the second.
Eight minutes later, Rasmussen benefited from a calamitous breakdown in the Sabres' neutral zone for a partial breakaway, which he buried. Though it was a blown Buffalo coverage that opened up Rasmussen's lane, the goal nonetheless required an incisive entry pass from Jeff Petry—who had just crossed his own blue line—to get the puck in for the streaking forward.
Just as the Red Wings were on the verge of a comfortable third period, Rasmus Dahlin infused the game with a hint of doubt by scoring a power play goal with just 1:03 to play in the second to make it 4-1.
Eight minutes and 20 seconds into the third, Casey Middlestadt upped the game's intensity with a goal to make it 4-2, before Jeff Skinner scored an unassisted power play goal three minutes later to cut Detroit's margin to one.
Larkin's empty netter brought that comeback to an untimely end and solidified the Red Wings' survival on another night in which they'd allowed a game to end much tighter than it needed to be, so Detroit's collective reaction was perhaps more one of relief than jubilation. Nonetheless, with the win in Buffalo, the Red Wings were winners of six of their last seven games and three straight.
The center of the post-victory celebration—in keeping with hockey custom—was the winning goaltender, Alex Lyon, and he was a worthy recipient of his team's appreciation. By the end of the night, the Yale product had stopped 29 of the 32 Sabre shots he faced and earned his fourth straight victory.
It wasn't smooth sailing for 60 minutes, but Detroit nonetheless showed an encouraging diversity of attacking as it built its initial 4-0 lead, and it's that ability to score in different ways that's helped the team start the year as the highest scoring squad in the Eastern Conference. In the moments where the Red Wings faltered, there was Lyon (with occasional help from the sliding Chiarot and Seider) to clean up the mess.
More importantly, the effort was good enough for two points and the win, lifting the Red Wings to 14-7-3 for the season and keeping the team in the thick of the East's playoff race.