Coming into Thursday night’s game without a win in three, the Red Wings were ready to forget their trip to California and get back to business with a home tilt against the Winnipeg Jets. I always love games against the Jets – that’s because like 80% of the players on the ice are from Michigan for some reason. Unfortunately for this game, it was a terribly offensive performance from the home team, which put them in line for their fourth loss in a row.
Not really the sharpest of starts for the Wings. Blashill rolled with the Erne-Rasmussen-Namestnikov line out of the gates and they were immediately overwhelmed by the Jets. It seemed like a series of small errors locked them in their own zone for at least the first three minutes. Alex Nedeljkovic made some sharp saves, but it was only a matter of time before the Jets would open the scoring. Andrew Copp, the hometown kid, scored from BEHIND THE GOAL LINE kinda like Dylan Larkin would. Just a stupid play.
Oh yeah, that’s former Red Wing Evgeny Svechnikov to you, pal.
Dylan Larkin had the best scoring chance in the first period. He was all alone in front of Winnipeg’s net thanks to a subtle but great play from Lucas Raymond. Larkin whipped it wide. The next scoring chances came on the power play, Fabbri had Connor Hellebuyck beat on the short side but it rang off the pipe.
Things seemed to be improving for the Wings headed into the second period. The cobwebs seemed to be shaken off and they were able to draw another power play chance. Just after that power play, Kyle Connor and Andrew Copp were sent on a two-on-one which caught Ned on his far short side for Copp’s second goal of the game.
We interrupt your regularly-scheduled recap for this wholesome content.
Detroit’s bug-a-boo was the power play. They had quite a few chances and the overall effort was toilet time. As the game went on, there just wasn’t much of a response. The top line looked great as always, but Lucas Raymond played a spectacular game on both ends of the ice, albeit a low-scoring affair.
It all came down to a crucial moment late in the third period, when the Red Wings would get a chance to go 6-on-3 after the Jets took a pair of penalties. Detroit followed their flavor and came out of it with a three-goal deficit, and ultimately, the dagger in this mess of a game.
Connor Hellebuyck and Alex Nedeljkovic played incredibly well in this game. Unfortunately only one of them got help from their team. Detroit should have managed to make this game closer, given all of the chances they were given. It’s really tough to do that when only one of your lines is giving you consistent offense. What should have been a way to bounce back from an ugly road trip ended with a shutout loss.
I don’t want to say Detroit was outplayed in this game. That’s not the case. This is simply a case of a team not taking care of business. They were handed several chances in this game but the offense was flat. The team is now win-less in its last four games. Buffalo is in town Saturday night. That gives them some time to shake off the jet leg from the California trip and get things back in order.