Red Wings Fall Back to Earth as Sharks Snap Streak

DETROIT—If Sunday’s rout of the Seattle Kraken had seemed a bit too easy for the Red Wings, perhaps it’s because it was. Coach Todd McLellan said as much in the immediate aftermath of that outing, saying his team’s effort was too “loose” for his liking. He’d cautioned that Detroit would need a practice it didn’t have to straighten out the issue, and instead, on Tuesday night, the Red Wings allowed a cavalier effort to snap their winning streak in a 6–3 loss to the visiting San Jose Sharks.

The confidence that defined that seven-game winning run manifested as something different Tuesday. As McLellan put it, “It was almost like we were entitled to win and when it wasn’t going for us, just a little bit of a sag. Human nature, but something we gotta fight through.”

Jan 14, 2025; Detroit, Michigan, USA; San Jose Sharks center Nico Sturm (7) scores against Detroit Red Wings goaltender Ville Husso (35) in the first period at Little Caesars Arena

Rick Osentoski, Imagn Images

According to defenseman Moritz Seider, the Red Wings “over-complicated” their game early, allowing the Sharks to take a control they would never relinquish, even if Detroit threatened a comeback. Per McLellan, the Red Wings allowed the worst of the Kraken performance to recur, saying, “I thought the third period against Seattle the other day showed up in the game today. We were sloppy in that third. We gave up quite a bit. We started the game that way. We didn’t break pucks out very well. When we did enter the offensive zone, we wanted to play East-West, cross-court, not a lot went to the net. Then you give up the short-handed goal and that really sets you back.”

Nico Sturm scored that goal, with 2:19 still to play in the first period. It came after the Red Wings had played their best hockey of the night over the back half of the first period, only for that effort to be undone and the deficit doubled when the Detroit power play that had fueled the winning streak conceded.

When the third period began, the Red Wings appeared primed for a comeback, backed by a Little Caesars Arena crowd that remained boisterous despite the score favoring the visitors. Instead, William Eklund scored 26 seconds into the third to make it 3–1 San Jose. Twice over the 19:34 that remained, Detroit scored to pull within a goal, and twice the Sharks responded within two minutes to restore their two-goal cushion, before Mario Ferraro buried an empty-netter with 1:38 remaining and the winning streak was history.

In net, Ville Husso—making his first NHL start since Dec. 14—did not show the best of his game in an 18-save performance, with Jan Rutta’s opening goal particularly lamentable, but as McLellan said post-game, the defeat hardly fell on his shoulders: “He probably has to find a way to make one of those saves…but if you or anybody in here thinks that game is on the goaltending, it sure wasn’t.”

The head coach had harsher criticism for defenseman Justin Holl, who did not return to the ice after a giveaway deep in his own end led directly to Tyler Toffoli netting San Jose’s fifth goal. Of Holl’s performance, McLellan said bluntly, “I’m not gonna sit up here and BS for him. He had a terrible night, and that’s just the way it is…I know he’s a better player than that.”

In the end, just as the four goals on six shots effectively ended Sunday’s Kraken game in less than eight minutes, Detroit’s start against the Sharks conditioned all that would follow. The scoreline wasn’t so decisive this time around, only a 1–0 deficit to overturn, but, despite recognizing that their play lacked the sharpness of the best of the winning run, the Red Wings weren’t able to slip out of the loose or over-complicated tone they’d set.

“It’s an interesting group because they watched each other play for the first 10 minutes,” McLellan observed. “They’re on the bench, and they’re watching things happen, and they can hear coaches barking, and they’re saying the same thing, and then the next group goes out and behaves the exact same way. To me, that tells me they weren’t sharp, they weren’t alert, they weren’t prepared to adjust.”

There were two bright spots for Detroit. The first was Vladimir Tarasenko, who ended an 18-game goal drought with a two-goal effort Tuesday—both of them from rebounds scored with releases McLellan described as “instant” and evocative of the Russian’s days as one of the league’s premier snipers. Tarasenko himself wasn’t interested in celebrating, however, saying instead, “It’s hard to talk about points when we lose the game. It was a nice stretch for us, but…now we need to recover.”

And from that sentiment emerges the other positive: While the Red Wings winning streak unravelled in a single evening, the work they did during that streak—on the ice for their confidence and in the standings for the sake of their season—cannot be reversed so swiftly. So as Tarasenko prescribed, Wednesday will bring practice and recovery before Detroit travels to South Florida ahead of Thursday evening’s tilt with the defending champion Panthers, where the Red Wings will look to begin a new streak.