DETROIT—If Sunday’s rout of the Seattle Kraken seemed a little too easy for the Red Wings, maybe that’s because it was. Coach Todd McLellan said as much immediately after that outing, saying his team’s effort was too “loose” for his liking. He warned that Detroit would need a practice, there was no need to fix the problem, and instead, on Tuesday night, the Red Wings allowed a cavalier effort to end their winning streak in a 6-3 loss to visiting San Francisco. Jose Sharks.
The confidence that has defined this seven-game winning streak manifested as something different Tuesday. As McLellan said, “It was almost like we had a right to win and when it didn’t go our way, there was just a little sag. Human nature, but something we have to fight against.” beat.”
Rick Osentoski, Imagn Images
According to defenseman Moritz Seider, the Red Wings “too complicated” their game early on, allowing the Sharks to take control that they would never relinquish, even if Detroit threatened to come back. According to McLellan, the Red Wings allowed the Kraken’s worst performance to happen again, saying, “I thought the third period against Seattle the other day showed up in today’s game. We were sloppy in that third period. We gave up quite a bit. We started the game that way. We didn’t get the pucks out very well. When we got into the offensive zone, we wanted to play east-west, down the field. little went wrong at the net. shorthanded goal and it really sets you back.”
Nico Sturm scored this goal with 2:19 remaining in the first period. This happened after the Red Wings played their best hockey of the night in the second half of the first period, but that effort was negated and the deficit doubled when the Detroit power play that had fueled the winning streak has conceded.
At the start of the third period, the Red Wings looked ready to come back, buoyed by a crowd at Little Caesars Arena 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 in the remaining 19:34, Detroit scored to bring it within a goal, and twice the Sharks responded within two minutes to restore their two-goal lead, before Mario Ferraro buried an empty net with 1:38 to play and the winning streak. it was history.
In net, Ville Husso, who was making his first NHL start since December 14, did not show the best of his game with an 18-save performance, Jan Rutta’s first goal being particularly dismal, but like McLellan said after the match, the loss barely fell on his shoulders: “He probably has to find a way to make one of those saves… but if you or anyone here thinks the match is against the goalkeeper, that certainly wasn’t the case.”
The head coach offered harsher criticism of defenseman Justin Holl, who did not return to the ice after a dropout deep in his own territory led directly to Tyler Toffoli scoring the fifth goal from San Jose. Of Holl’s performance, McLellan said bluntly: “I’m not going to sit here and do shit for him. He had a terrible night, and that’s what it is…I know that he’s a better player than that.”
Ultimately, 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 everything that came next. The score wasn’t as decisive this time around, only a 1-0 deficit to overturn, but, although they acknowledged their game lacked the sharpness of the series-winning best, the Red Wings didn’t failed to stand out from the crowd. loose or too complicated tone that they had given.
“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 the coaches barking, and they’re saying the same thing, and then the next group comes out and behaves the exact same way. To me, that tells me that they weren’t sharp, they weren’t alert, they weren’t ready to adapt.”
There were two positives for Detroit. First up was Vladimir Tarasenko, who ended an 18-game drought with a two-goal effort Tuesday — both on rebounds scored with punts that McLellan described as “instant” and evocative of the days when the Russian was one of the best snipers in the league. Tarasenko himself was not interested in celebrating, instead stating: “It’s difficult to talk about points when we lose the match. It was a great sequence for us, but… now we have to to recover.”
And out of that sentiment emerges another positive: Although the Red Wings’ winning streak happened in a single night, the work they put in during that streak — on the ice for their confidence and in the standings for the good of their season – cannot be reversed. quickly. So, as Tarasenko prescribed, Wednesday will bring training and recovery before Detroit travels to South Florida ahead of Thursday night’s game against the defending champion Panthers, where the Red Wings will look to begin a new sequence.
