The Detroit Red Wings‘ bid for a playoff spot was set back by one of the best goaltenders in the game.
Andrei Vasilevskiy withstood a pounding Saturday at Little Caesars Arena, making 45 saves for the Tampa Bay Lightning to hand the Wings a 3-0 loss.
“He was just remarkable,” Wings coach Derek Lalonde said. “It feels like we deserved a much better fate. We dominated most of the game.”
It was only the Wings’ third loss in the last nine games. They’re jammed with a handful of teams for the two wild-card spots in the Eastern Conference; the Wings are trying to make the playoffs for the first time since 2016.
The Wings had to play with a short bench after losing Michael Rasmussen in the first period. But, just as they did when they lost Dylan Larkin for disciplinary reasons in the first period Tuesday against the Washington Capitals, the Wings spread out their forwards and made do. It wasn’t them, it was Vasilevskiy. When the Wings got their fourth power play, midway through the third period, he had made 42 saves.
“We put a lot of shots at him and it’s the story of the game,” Dylan Larkin said. “.Just couldn’t get one by him. We had grade-As. I think we played a pretty good hockey game against a good team, but he was their answer tonight.”
The Wings went into the second intermission with a bit of a crusher, as Nikita Kucherov scored with seven seconds left in the second period, building on Brayden Point’s first goal.
“That was a little bit of a back-breaker, just with the fact the period we had,” Lalonde said of Kucherov’s goal. “We had maybe four-to-five of ‘how did that no go in’ moments, and they try to center a puck and it goes off a stick and ends up five-hole. But that’s why they win. That’s why they’re a really good team. They don’t need a lot.”
The Wings resorted to pulling Ville Husso with more than three minutes to play, but all that yielded was an empty-net goal from Alex Killorn.
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Tyler Bertuzzi had a great chance denied by Vasilevskiy late in the first period; Bertuzzi fired a wrist shot from down low that Vasilevskiy denied by extending his left leg. Jake Walman, who led the Wings with seven shots on net, was thwated on back-to-back chances near the midpoint of the second period; a wrist shot from the right circle was turned away, and when Walman got a hold of his own rebound and tried to tip it in, Vasilevskiy got a piece of that, too. In the same period, Walman took a shot from the blue line, and Larkin was at the crease for the rebound, but couldn’t get the puck up and over Vasilevskiy’s pad.
“A world-class goalie like that, the best in the world, when you see that, it’s not what you want to see when he’s hot like that and pucks are hitting him,” Larkin said. “You could just tell he was going to be the difference maker.”
Vrana scratched
Two games after joining the lineup for the first time in four months, Jakub Vrana was scratched. Derek Lalonde said it wasn’t a performance issue, but rather a numbers crunch: The Wings wanted to get Jonatan Berggren back into the lineup after he was scratched the previous game. Lucas Raymond missed his eighth straight game since suffering a lower-body injury Feb. 10, but he is expected to return during the coming week. That will further create a situation where the Wings have more skilled forwards than roster spots.
Historic date
As the Wings make their playoff push. Saturday marked 27 years to the day the franchise clinched a berth in the 1996 playoffs. That was the history-making team that set an NHL record with 62 victories in a season. The man who is now their general manager, Steve Yzerman, had 67 points at the time of clinching; he was one of four players on the team who had at least 50 points. They had played 59 games when they clinched.
Contact Helene St. James at hstjames@freepress.com. Follow her on Twitter @helenestjames.
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Her latest book, “On the Clock: Behind the Scenes with the Detroit Red Wings at the NHL Draft,” is available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Triumph Books. Personalized copies available via her e-mail.