Originally posted on Detroit Hockey Now | By Kevin Allen |
The best-case scenario hope that the Detroit Red Wings might make a small splash in the early going has been replaced by the reality that they are a group currently only holding their heads above water.
The Red Wings’ 6-2 loss to the surging Winnipeg Jets (9-1-0) Wednesday leaves the Detroit squad with a 4-5-1 record at the end of the first 10-game segment.
“Definitely not as sharp as we need to be to win games in this league against top teams,” Detroit center J.T. Compher said. “And when you’re not that sharp, that’s what happens. And their skill does take over. Gave them too much room on the rush, too much room in the D zone. And they were able to capitalize on us.”
Detroit was down 2-0 at 4:02 of the first period, and was down 3-0 late in the period.
The Red Wings put special emphasis on improved defense in training camp, but already rank 21st in the NHL with a 3.40 GAA. They have given up four or more goals in five of the 10 games.
“It’s very frustrating game in that the three first period goals which obviously got us behind a team like that were just one-on-one battles,” Coach Derek Lalonde said. “We got beat to the net. Two rushes in which we identified the right guy and just the guy outmuscles a guy to the net for an easy goal and then a faceoff goal. Same thing, simple assignment and just got beat to the net.”
The Red Wings haven’t found their identity, and have not taken care of the details. They are getting out-shot in every game, and sometimes by a significant margin. They only had 21 shots against the Jets.
‘Not Hard Enough’ Around Opposing Goalies
“Obviously we haven’t been very good on the special teams winning the battles. Our goaltending has been good. That’s been a highlight, so far,” Captain Dylan Larkin said. “And we haven’t scored enough 5-on-5. We haven’t been hard enough. You’ve seen glimpses of it. We haven’t been hard enough around the other team’s goalies. In my opinion, it’s all fixable and I think we have the personnel to do it, but we need to do it. We were in a similar position last year. We need to figure out what we are as a team and start to gain some traction and play to an identity. ”
After falling behind 3-0, the Red Wings pushed back into the game with a pair of power play goals — one by Larkin and the other by Alex DeBrincat.
But they gave up a goal to Nino Niederreiter 10 seconds into the third period and that eliminated the momentums they created with the power play tallies.
Another telling statistic: the Jets outscored Detroit 5-0 on even-strength goals on the Red Wings’ home ice.
“I think that we can’t have games like that,” Larkin said. “I think most of the forwards were passengers tonight. We didn’t help ourselves breaking the puck out. We can’t be outscored 5-0 on home ice, even against a good team with very skilled offensive forwards. And I feel like we gave them the puck too much. We let them do what they wanted in the O-zone and kind of really exposed us. “