At this point, moral victories aren’t going to do the Detroit Red Wings much good.
Yes, they did well to rally from 2-0 and 3-2 deficits to gain a point in a 4-3 overtime loss to the Western Conference-leading Chicago Blackhawks Tuesday at the United Center, but the outcome can’t overcome the ongoing problem that again saw the Wings fall behind to an opponent.
The fact of the matter is that catch-up hockey simply isn’t successful hockey over the long haul, which would explain why the Wings find themselves desperately - and far too often, futilely - chasing a playoff position.
“We played OK,” was Detroit captain Henrik Zetterberg’s assessment. “I thought we did a lot of good things. Now we’ve just got to do it again. I think that’s the situation we are in right now. We have to continue to get points.”
In a scenario where they must make up ground, deep down, the Red Wings recognize that playing OK isn’t really OK.
“We’re getting down to crunch time, we all know that” Zetterberg said. “We know how many games we have left, we know how many points are left to play with. We pretty much know how many we’ve got to win.
“I don’t think we have to look at the standings. We know where we are, we know what we have to do. The standings for one day, it moves just a little bit, you know you have to put a run together for weeks and games. If you’re not doing that, you’re not going to move.
“Even if we’re doing that and other teams are doing that, it’s the same thing. It’s hard to be behind and we’re behind now.”
Close Call?
The Wings weren’t pleased with the boarding penalty on Justin Abdelkader with 16 seconds left in regulation time that led to Duncan Keith’s OT winner only 38 seconds into extra time.
Abdelkader, playing his first game in six weeks since suffering a knee injury, ended up doing what he’d been doing since early December, sitting and watching after taking Chicago defenseman Niklas Hjalmarsson into the boards.
“I was just trying to rub him out there,” Abdelkader said. “It wasn’t like I was trying to put him into the fourth row or anything. He went down obviously. The ref maybe thought he was hurt and called a penalty. I don’t know.
“I mean I don’t really think I was doing anything wrong. I was just kind of rubbing him out. I didn’t go to cross check him from behind or like I said, put him in the fourth row.”
Penalty Problems
The Wings allowed two power-play goals and were shorthanded six times on the night.
“The two ways you probably lose momentum is getting scored on and having to kill penalties,” Detroit coach Jeff Blashill said.
The Wings did both multiple times.
“We took too many penalties tonight,” Abdelkader said. “All night I think we’ve got to find a way to stay out of the box.
“It would have been nice to get a couple of power plays there, some chances but for whatever reason we didn’t.”
Detroit was offered only one power-play opportunity the entire game, and were especially upset when Zetterberg’s stick was snapped in half with a slash and no call was made.
“My stick broke so it was either the wind or a slash,” Zetterberg said.
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