POSTGAME: Larkin’s Night

We’re sort of all waiting for this bubble to burst right? After that brutal start in Florida the entire league has seemed to be waiting for the Wings to fall off. Beat Ottawa? Big deal. The Rangers? Ah, your goalie bailed you out. But then Nashville and San Jose? They’re just getting the puck luck. Darren Helm already 20% of the way to last years point total in only six games? Vanek looking like he’s still the young stud drafted in the legendary 2003 draft? Let’s just ignore the outside world for 60 minutes and just try and enjoy Dylan Larkin bobble head night at The Joe, regardless of the outcome. 

Another good start for the Wings. Same lines as last game with Abdelkader out still meaning we got to see Athanasiou fly alongside a red hot Helm and Vanek. It didn’t take long for the three of them to get things going:

Athanasiou and Helm doing what they do best: using their speed to get to the open areas and anticipating where the puck is going to be. Excellent heads-up play by AA to get it to Vanek in the slot ready to go. This got the team on track for a great period. Everyone was skating, lots of sustained pressure and a good penalty kill had the momentum on the Wings side for the entire first. 

After a couple more good shifts we saw the man of the night sprung on a clean break:

Vintage Zetterberg on that beauty backhand pass. You had the feeling that by the time he hit the blue line that puck was as good as in the net. Slick move and a great first goal of the season for Larkin on his bobblehead night. The kid wasn’t done there though. When you’re hot just put it towards the net:

That’s two for Larkin and a ferocious start again for the Red Wings who found themselves up 3-0 after twenty. 

Good starts haven’t been an issue but at times taking the foot off the gas has been. Tonight that hit this team hard in the second period. A little bit of a slower start, some bad penalties and suddenly Carolina found themselves on the board:

Jordan Staal, a seemingly continual pain in the side of the Wings starts the momentum swing on a bad miscommunication by the Wings. This was the start of a bad slide for the Wings. Turnovers in their own zone, errant passes and lots of scrambling going on. Mrazek continued his strong play as the gap in shots began to close. Then at the end of a Carolina power-play, Victor Rask stayed red hot with this 7th point in 6 games to close the gap to a 3-2 game. 

Thankfully, as the period was winding down and Detroit looked like they were just out there trying to survive, the man himself, Andreas Athanasiou worked wonders again:

After a seemingly never ending scrum in the corner, Glendening popped loose and managed to thread the pass to AA. A quick pump-fake and the awareness to walk in further before letting it rip and Detroit had restored a two goal lead. Shoutout to Ott and whoever he got away with destroying in front there. 

They left the period in tact but it was not a good showing.

The third started with a slower back and fourth. Both teams a little hesitant to make the next mistake after a lopsided period for each time thus far. This was the first game we really saw flashes of last years squad. After going up 3-0 they slowed down considerably, they attempted a slower, defensive style and it just doesn’t work for them. Mrazek again was super sharp, facing sixteen shots in the third alone after only being fifteen in the first two periods. The last minute and a half he was just getting peppered from all directions. Despite Carolina’s hard press at the ending, the Wings managed to keep it a scoreless third and win their fifth straight game. 

That’s 10 points in the last week for the Wings and hopefully things can keep up from here. They’re currently leading the league with only 8 goals against at 5v5 so far this season and if they can cut out the bad penalties they’re going to be in good shape. They have a real test on Thursday against a phenomenal St. Louis team but have hopefully an easy one saturday vs Boston who are missing both their goalies to injures and just got slaughtered by the low-scoring Minnesota Wild 5-0 this evening. Sunday maybe they can seek some redemption against the Panthers to close out what thus far has been a solid October.