WINGS POST-GAME: THEY HAVE MCDAVID

Fresh off of a 3-2 overtime loss in Calgary, the Red Wings were in Edmonton to face Connor McDavid and the Oilers, who have been waiting since returning from St. Louis on Tuesday. Detroit came into play tonight having gone 3-1-1 in their last five and have actually fared well on the tail-end of back-to-back sets this season. Tonight was their 10th back-to-back of the season and they had gone 5-3-1 in their first nine. 

The Red Wings got off to a sluggish start and were unable to contain arguably the best player in the world as McDavid picked the puck up at his own blueline and burned Xavier Ouellet to make it 1-0 less than a minute into the game. 

Despite not scoring a goal this season, Jeff Blashill has shown a lot of confidence in Riley Sheahan. He has averaged close to 15 minutes per night this season, but he smoked Blashill in the face with clearing attempt tonight, so playing time might be harder to come by going forward. 

The Red Wings ended up settling in later in the first period and eventually found the back of the net. Henrik Zetterberg made a nifty pass to setup Anthony Mantha for his 14th of the season. 

With that assist, Zetterberg extended his point streak to six games and gave him at least 50 points in a season for the 10th time in his career. With under a minute in the first, Oilers forward Zack Kassian deflected a point shot home to give them a 2-1 lead heading into the room. 

The second period was mostly uneventful. Ryan Sproul went down by himself early in the period and had to be helped off of the ice and was unable to put any weight on his left leg. It’s tough to see a player go down without any contact and usually isn’t a good sign. It is even worse for the Red Wings, who went down to five defensemen on a tough back-to-back. 

The Red Wings killed off the only penalty of the period. Mrazek continued to stand tall, turning away 25 of the 27 shots he faced through two. 

After a goalless second period, the third period had no shortage of excitement. Dylan Larkin lost his man Jordan Eberle in the neutral zone and Eberle was able to force a backhand by Mrazek to take a 3-1 lead 6:58 into the third. 

Shortly after that, Larkin made up for his mistake by springing Darren Helm for a breakaway, which he capitalized on to cut the deficit back to one. 

 

Helm’s play has improved as of late and he’s now played 17-plus minutes in four straight games and has goals in back-to-back games. However, less than four minutes later McDavid and Leon Draisaitl worked some magic and Patrick Maroon ended up finding the back of the net for his 21st of the season. 

After tying the game with 0.2 seconds left on Friday, the Red Wings were looking for more heroics tonight and they almost found it. Larkin was able to snap his 15-game goalless drought with 0:35 seconds left, but back-to-back icing calls after that drained the clock and the Red Wings dropped this one 4-3. 

As you can see, the Red Wings were pretty much dominated from start to finish and if it weren’t for a couple of darling saves by Mrazek, it would have been significantly worse. 

As much as Mrazek probably deserves to be the MVP because it would have been 10-2 without him, the MVP is your head coach Jeff Blashill. You have to appreciate your coach taking one off of the dome and just shaking it off. He didn’t even move. Got patched up and stayed in there. What a warrior. 

It’s probably because he is a former goalie and they’re all pretty much nuts. He’s used to having rubber ripped at him, so tonight didn’t even phase him. The other reason why he is my MVP is because he didn’t do anything stupid like play Andreas Athanasiou seven minutes or Luke Glendening 25 minutes. 

The Red Wings’ road trip continues as they travel to Toronto for a meeting with Mike Babcock on Tuesday. It will be the third of four meetings and Detroit is 0-1-1 against Toronto so far. The Maple Leafs are on a five-game losing streak and sit outside of the playoffs—it’d be nice to go into their barn and extend that posting streak. Puck-drop is at 7:30 p.m. ET and I’ll have your GameDay preview!