Coming off a win last night in Edmonton that went down to the final minute, I wondered how the Wings would respond playing on a back-to-back. The wonderment quickly turned to worry as the Flames scored less than 3 minutes into the game. After a Flames' PP generated multiple scoring chances, I feared the Wings would be unable to climb out of this hole.
After the penalty kill the Wings finally woke up and minutes later Sheahan tied the score on an incredible individual effort. Finally the Wings began to play Red Wing hockey and they controlled the majority of the
possession for the remainder of the game. Eventually this possession resulted in a Zetterberg goal late in the 2nd period, as he was able to lose
his defender and find a rebound. The Red Wings continued their
solid play into the 3rd when Nyquist made a beautiful backdoor pass to Abdelkader on
the PP to give them a 3-1 lead. Another PP opportunity gave the Wings a chance
to shut the door on this hard-working Flames team. However a turnover
created a 2-1 for Backlund and Byron going the other way. DeKeyser didn't take away the pass and Weiss
didn't lift Backlund’s stick, allowing the Flames to make it a one goal game. There were two
extremely close chances for Calgary to tie it up in the third, but eventually the Wings were able to hold on and take all 4 points on this road trip.
X shows his age- The last two nights it has
looked to me that Ouellet's play has fallen a bit from when he was first recalled to Detroit. His composure makes it easy to forget that he is yet to reach 20 games in the NHL so this is to be expected somewhat. And to be clear although I think he has struggled somewhat, I will still be disappointed when he is sent back to Grand Rapids once Kindl returns from injury.
Playing to Win or Not to Lose- When on the Power Play and up by 2 goals the Red Wings, as usual, sent out 4 forwards and only 1 defender. A bad turnover eventually led to a shorthanded goal which led to Babcock sending out 2 D-men for the
remainder of the PP. I personally have no problem with Babcock sending only one
D out there for the PP since a goal in that situation would have effectively ended the game. But if you’re going to send out one D when up 3-1, there’s no
reason to send 2 out once the score is 3-2. Either play it safe or go for it all, but at least be consistent about it.
Trick or Treat Mrazek- We saw tonight both the good and bad of Mrazek.
Similar to Jon Quick, to make up for his lack of size Mrazek is extremely aggressive. He is generally able to survive due to his elite skating and recovery ability which we noticed on a number of great stops tonight.
However the first goal demonstrated how that aggressiveness can work against him. As Raymond comes in, Mrazek is super aggressive and stops the first shot. However due to his aggressiveness he is out of position and it is easy for Raymond to pick up the rebound and wrap
it around into the empty net.
System + Fatigue = Trouble?- As I showed when I broke down the Red Wing's D-zone system, the Red Wings heavily rely on the forwards to back check hard through the middle to eliminate odd-man rushes. When watching a number of odd-man rushes for the Flames tonight I wondered if it might be due to the heavy responsibilities of the forwards. When tired, I think the Red Wings may lack that one step that can be the difference between an odd-man rush for them and continued zone time for us.
Great road trip for the Wings. Winning both games of a back-to-back is always excellent, even if it was against subpar competition. Next game is in Washington on Saturday. Go Wings.
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