Red Wings End Road Trip With Bitter Loss

On Tuesday night in Philadelphia, the Detroit Red Wings lost 2–1 in overtime to the host Flyers. After opening their four-game road spell with a convincing win over the defending champion Panthers, the Red Wings followed up with three straight losses, scoring just one goal in each game.

Though that was enough to salvage a point in Philly, it doesn’t change the fact that Detroit presently wants for even strength offense. “We gotta find a way to probably score more than one a night five-on-five if we’re gonna have success,” coach Todd McLellan told reporters after the game.

When asked what’s contributed to his teams difficulties in that area of late, he added, “We’re getting pucks to the net. We’re not getting sticks on the secondary ones. When you think when we were playing against Seattle and having that scoring mentality, if it got to the net, we found a way to a stick on the secondary one. Right now, if we do get it, we’re kind of off in the corner, we’re just not quick enough, maybe anticipation skills, but we’ve probably earned some respect of some of the other teams now too. They may take us a little more serious, which is a great thing, and check a little harder.”

Even with that difficulty producing offense, the Red Wings defended well enough to, with help from 24 stops from goaltender Alex Lyon, force overtime. In the final minute before the shootout, Patrick Kane played a give-and-go with Alex DeBrincat to break in unabated on Flyers goaltender Samuel Ersson, but Kane couldn’t get any power behind his backhand shot. Instead, Philadelphia defenseman Rasmus Ristolainen led his team back up ice on the rush and eventually finished off that rush to win the game by tapping home a loose puck on the goal line after an Owen Tippett chance came inches from striking the target.

The difference between one point and two was even slimmer than usual in Tuesday’s overtime, but despite the cruel final fate, captain Dylan Larkin saw reason for optimism. “We worked for each other, we broke the puck out well, and we did play with it in their zone,” observed Larkin. “We got shots through with traffic. We knew it was gonna be a game like that. We were hoping that our power play could be a factor, and credit to them, they didn’t take any penalties to get us out on the ice.”

Now, the Red Wings will return home and turn their attentions to a surging Canadiens team, that as of Tuesday evening has won 13 of its last 17 games and presently sits in the wild card slot Detroit covets.