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Gustav Nyquist knows that it’s time for him to step up. He needs to stand and deliver some goals in the playoffs if the Detroit Red Wings hope to get past the Tampa Bay Lightning in their opening-round series.
“For sure,” he said. “The last couple of years I think the whole team has had trouble scoring but obviously we’re a big part of that, so we’ve got to be better,” Nqyuist added of his forward unit with Tomas Tatar and Riley Sheahan.
“We’ve had those years of experience now, this year I think coming in, our line especially, we’ve just got to be real solid in our own end.
“That’s where our offense starts, so we can be fast through the neutral zone. She’s been hot lately and hopefully me and Tats can catch on some of that.”
Tatar tallied three times and Sheahan scored twice in last spring’s seven-game opening-round playoff series loss to the Lightning, but Nyquist was held to a solitary goal. He’s scored one goal in his last 17 playoffs games and only twice in his last 24 games of Stanley Cup action.
Nyquist is hopeful that the close checking down the stretch as Detroit battled for a playoff spot will harden him to the battle that needs to be waged in order to score in the playoffs.
“It’s tight, but for us, the last few years, at least the last 10 or 20 games it’s been kind of the playoffs,” Nyquist said. “We’ve had to crawl our way into the playoffs. Same thing this year.
“Down the stretch here it’s been playoff-type games, so you kind of get used to it gradually coming in. But for sure it’s a lot tighter out there. You have to fight for every inch of your ice. You can’t take a shift off or anything like that. Everything is on the line, that’s why it’s the best time of the year to play hockey, so just go leave it all out there.
“It’s going to be tight but we’re excited for this challenge.”
On a team that scored just 211 goals this season, the lowest total of any of the 16 Stanley Cup playoff qualifiers, Nyquist isn’t alone among Detroit forwards who’ve found playoff goals hard to come by.
Darren Helm has gone without a goal for 14 playoff games and Justin Abdelkader is in the midst of a 16-game post-season goalless drought. Last spring, for the first time in his NHL career, Detroit captain Henrik Zetterberg played an entire Stanley Cup series without illuminating a single red light and he’s scored just twice in his last 16 playoff games.
Zetterberg, who will be reunited with Pavel Datsyuk on a line with Abdelkader to open the series, enters the playoffs without a goal over his last 11 regular-season games and with just one tally in his last 24 games.
“Yeah, it would be nice to get a few,” Zetterberg acknowledged. “I’ve been getting some chances. You’ve just got to put the puck behind the goaltender.
“That’s the big issue so far.”
Detroit coach Jeff Blashill insists he isn’t worried by his captain’s alarming lack of offensive output.
“The first thing when I see with anybody that hasn’t produced to the level that you expect them to is I go back and look at our scoring chances, and how many scoring chances they’re actually creating and what the plus minus is on their scoring chances,” Blashill said. “When I went back over the last 20 games, his scoring chances have been very good. He hasn’t really dropped off that much from the previous 20 games prior to that or really throughout the season.
“You’re always going to have a little ebb and flow on that. I see him still playing at a high level. He’s got tons of responsibility. He’s had to play against a lot of the other teams’ best players, which is not an easy task.
“I just think if he keeps playing the same game, the production will come.”
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