POSTGAME: BOB AIN’T HAVIN’ IT

The Wings found themselves getting some skaters back in the lineup for this friday evening home matchup. Marchenko made his return to the point but more importantly Andreas Athanasiou was set to make his return. It seemed important to start this 5-game homestand on a positive note. A lot of this home stretch faces off against western conference teams, which detroit fares surprisingly well against, but Columbus had been hot fire this year and Detroit has struggled vs the east. Tonight sadly, was not the Wings night. 

It certainly wasn’t a bad period, despite the Red Wings eventually leaving it down 1-0. They actually managed to outshoot an opponent in a frame, which has been rare this year. A fairly stagnant power-play went to work early in this one and sadly gave up this short handed 2-on-1:

Maybe if Detroit keeps giving up shorthanded goals to teams top players, maybe they’ll look at reworking their below average PK…

Positives from the period though came from the kids. Athanasiou was flying from the hop. Drawing penalties, dangling defenders, making a strong case that not only does he need to hop off that fourth line, he’s still one of the best forwards on the team despite missing a month. 

Mantha also had the legs going. Some smart looks getting pucks to the net and a beautiful breakaway chance he rung off the iron:

Since descending somewhat inexplicably into Jeff Blashill’s dog house, Larkin has got the wheels going and was generating a ton of offence seemingly singlehandedly despite his sub-par line mates (Glendening). The kids are going against a team prone to making mistakes. Leaving the period felt as though they just needed a bounce to go their way. 

Just when things were going so well. The second turned into a frame the team would probably like to forget, but it wasn’t all bad. An early penalty but the PP unit back to work and this time, it finally found some success:

The kid continues to lead the Wings in goals, netting his 9th of the year thanks to a well-placed Vanek shot. 

The rest of the period was fairly difficult to watch because it just seemed to flip the script on what the season has looked like so far in Detroit. All four lines were actually rolling consistently, chances were being had, shots were getting to the net, and the Wings overall play was looking pretty good. Instead of having goaltenders bail them out like usual, Mrazek was having a bit of a rough go tonight. Two goals in a row that were made possible by bad glove hand rebounds that any goaltender should have managed to catch. I’ll give him a slight pass on this first one because the whistle should have been blown but that was just a scrambled play all started with a 60 foot shoot in Mrazek should have caught:

Just a weird play all around. 

After a couple more offensive exchanges yet another easy glove save was fumbled and found its way into the back of the net. First NHL goal for Sadlak:

After two period the Wings found themselves down 3-1 despite outshooting the Jackets 22-17 after two. 

More of the same for the Wings in the third period. Some chances but very few in the high danger areas. Another power-play they failed to convert on and they sat back as the Jackets played the clock by repeatedly dumping the puck in and letting the Wings attempt to get it out of their own zone. There were certainly some good looks but the Wings found themselves getting out muscled and quite simply outplayed by a red hot Sergei Bobrovsky. The team looked decent after pulling the goalie with more than two minutes left but again, they failed to convert on the mismatch. Sam Gagner continued his stellar bounce-back season and managed to pot an empty netter to seal the deal at 4-1. Despite outshooting an opponent for the first time in a while, the Wings still found themselves on the losing end of this one.

This was the opening of a 5 game home stand. The Wings have been brutal at home as of late and this wasn’t exactly the start they were looking for. To be honest, that was one of the worst games Columbus put together all year and yet they still dummied the Wings. Detroit will see Philly, Arizona, LA and Anaheim before next week’s end with a day off in-between each game. There are no excuses this week, should they want to keep playoff hopes alive they’re going to need to walk away with at least six points in this run. Expect some line and scratch shuffling this weekend and we’ll see how the team fares from here.