POSTGAME: PLAY WITH FIRE, GET BURNED

Losers of their last three, Detroit came into this game in desperate need of a win vs a Gaudreau-less Calgary Flames. There was a slight glimmer of hope with the return of Thomas Vanek but with how deep the issues have been running in this lineup lately, it wasn’t going to be the game changer they need. Howard has been phenomenal for them so far this year despite getting little to no help from the roster and he would see himself starting again. With only two wins in November so far, this was a home game they needed a to walk away with a clean two points on. 

Shots were even in the period 10-10, a decent showing for a Detroit team rarely getting 30 shots a night. After being buried once again in the lineup despite being one of the teams best possession players and victim of just a bad luck streak (4.8% shooting percentage), Tomas Tatar still managed to get the Wings on the board:

The Wings got two chances on the power play but failed to convert despite hope for improvement in this area with the return of Vanek. As per the trends as of late, no Detroit lead is safe. 

It didn’t take long for Calgary to get themselves back into this one early in the second. An NHL first for the Flames Garnet Hathaway:

A fairly uneventful second period continued. A successful kill for the Wings, but otherwise nothing much to write home about. Detroit gave up another 10 shots in the frame, finding themselves outshot 20-16 after two. This is a trend that has plagued them all season and since their luck started running out, it has showed truly how many holes are in this teams game right now. 

Another bad start to a period and suddenly the Wings found themselves down a goal for the first time in the game. Another long shot from the point where the defenceman failed to clear his man from the net:

Defensive woes have been the teams biggest issue for years now and failure to even clear the net is a relatively simple task that this group regularly can’t complete. 

Thankfully Detroit found their stride soon after off the stick of young stud Anthony Mantha. After a failed 2-on-1 Mantha stuck with the play and after sneaking out from behind the net, scored a true goal scorer’s goal:

Damn that’s nice.

After already blowing the lead once though, Detroit figured second time’s a charm. Never to be outdone they managed to give up the go ahead goal in spectacular fashion:

Vanek with just no concern at all for taking his man. As the goal is scored, Backlund is putting the puck in from basically the goal line and Vanek is actually the player furthest away from the play on both teams. Miscommunication, oversight, whatever you want to call it, it was awful and it cost the Red Wings the game.

For the second game in a row, the Red Wings managed to get a late penalty that made it so pulling the goalie got them just to 5v5. Howard took a bad delay of game penalty and who does the team send to the box? Anthony Mantha. The only person out there skating with any legs, the only player generating chances and by far the hottest hand in the third period. This non-sensical deployment is going to be the death of this team from playing with 4th line 10+ minutes a night, to burying Tatar down on the third line to disregarding what is happening on the ice and going with the same old set of guys who never get the job done. 

November has been atrocious for the team despite a relatively easy schedule. Should they miss the playoffs we’ll look back at this month as the one that really did them in. They still have Buffalo, New Jersey, Montreal and Dallas before months end and if they don’t come out of this stretch with at least 6 points, their playoff hopes will fade to nearly impossible. It almost doesn’t even feel as though the team is underperforming, this roster is showing continually that it just isn’t that good.