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Weiss, Glendening, pace Wings |
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Stephen Weiss lit up his old team and Luke Glendening enjoyed the first multi-goal game of his NHL career as a new-look forward line of Riley Sheahan between those two pounced on the Florida Panthers for three second-period goals in Detroit’s 5-4 victory Tuesday at the BT&T Center.
“I don’t think since I’ve played in the game we’ve beaten them, so was a little stressful coming down to the end there,” said Weiss who spent the first 654 games of his NHL career with the Panthers.
“They’ve come back on a lot of teams. They battled hard, but it feels good to finally get a win against them and to contribute and score a goal. It’s special, especially in this building.”
Weiss tallied a goal and two assists, while Glendening scored twice and was plus-four.
“Three straight shifts things were just going in for us,” Glendening said. “That happens some nights – for me not very often, but I was fortunate.
“We never played together (as a line) before, but those are two great players so I didn’t have to do much out there.”
Glendening seemed happier to see Weiss excel against his old club.
“Obviously he’s a great player and for him to have a game like that back in his old barn and against his old team is great,” Glendening said.
Weiss was of a completely different opinion on the matter, tipping his cap toward Glendening, who scored just once last season in 56 games as a rookie.
“You probably see some pretty big smiles on Shea’s and my face after his goals,” Weiss said. “He’s a heart and soul guy, does all the little things that don’t show up on the game sheet all the time, so to see him get a couple tonight was awesome.”
The victory extended Detroit’s season-high winning streak to six games. The Wings’ previous six-game winning streak was Feb. 8-19, 2012.
Four Times Three
The Wings surrendered four goals in three straight games for the first time all season. That hadn’t happened since March 23-27, 2014.
Even more significantly, the Wings were able to win all three of these games. That hadn’t occurred since the 1992-93 season.
Detroit won 7-5 at Washington on Nov. 20, 1992. Two days later and back on home ice, the Wings throttled Tampa Bay 10-5. The next day, Detroit posted an 11-6 drubbing of St. Louis, also at Joe Louis Arena.
These three victories weren’t that lopsided – a 6-4 win over Buffalo and a 5-4 shootout verdict over Minnesota preceding Tuesday’s triumph – but they are still unsettling to a team that prides itself on solid defense.
“It wasn’t a very pretty game at points, but it was a big win for us,” Glendening said.
Part of the problem, according to Detroit captain Henrik Zetterberg, is that the Wings are simply permitting too many shots to get through to their net. Minnesota fired 38 pucks at Detroit goalie Petr Mrazek and Florida pelted him with 41 pucks.
“I don’t know how many shots they had – I know it was over 40 – that’s something that we’ve got to be better at,” Zetterberg said. “We can’t let teams have that many shots against us.”
Detroit coach Mike Babcock wasn’t as certain. Sounding like a Democrat in 2000, he questioned the ability of Floridians to count properly.
“I thought their shot clock was screwed up,” Babcock said. “Our video coach (Andrew Brewer) thought the shot clock … when we hit the net it’s supposed to count, when they miss the net it’s not supposed to count.
“We (won’t) worry about that. The NHL can figure that crap out.”
PK Woes
Detroit’s penalty kill, which had sagged to eighth overall in the NHL at the all-star break (83.2 per cent) and a disturbing 18th overall on the road (77.9 per cent) continued to struggle, allowing the Panthers to net three power-play goals in five opportunities.
“Our penalty kill’s not great right now so we’ve got to get back on track with that,” Glendening said. “That’s a concern.
“When the PK’s struggling and you take penalties that can be a problem. We’ve got to clean some things up.”
Zetterberg thinks that it’s merely a matter of small things in need of repair.
“Obviously you don’t want to be in the box, so you’ve got to be a little better at doing the right things and be more disciplined,” Zetterberg said.
“The PK has been so good all year and now it’s such small things that decide if it’s going to go right or wrong. I think we are not doing anything different.
“The puck’s not bouncing our way. Now we’ve just got to stick with it, no panic and we’ll be fine.”
Babcock seemed a little less certain that the PK unit was simply in a fixer-upper condition.
“We’ve got to get our penalty kill fixed because we were on our heels tonight on the penalty kill instead of being aggressive and so that’s confidence and we’ve got to get that confidence back,” Babcock said.
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