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Gameplan abandoned; Is hope going with it? |
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Another day, another familiar-sounding setback for the Detroit Red Wings.
Carrying a 2-1 lead into the second period of Thursday’s game at Dallas against the Stars, the Wings opted to completely abandon their plan of attack and the end result was three unanswered second-period goals for the Stars and a 5-2 Dallas victory.
“I thought we were playing pretty well, kind of limiting their shots but we got away from that in the second,” Detroit forward Gus Nyquist said. “I thought we started playing a little chance on chance, not staying above our guys, not getting pucks deep, which is our gameplan against these guys.
“So the second period lost us the game.”
Captain Henrik Zetterberg seconded Nyquist’s motion that the Wings threw the game away in the middle 20 minutes.
“We started playing a little sloppy in the second, didn’t get the puck down, passed up shots, gave them a lot of odd-man rushes, and it’s a tough team to do that (against.”
“They completely took over the second period. In the third I thought we got back to playing the way we wanted to. We created chances but it’s tough to score five to win.
“I think we know that we’re shooting ourselves in the foot and we can’t do that if you want to get points every night.”
Why? Well there’s the question in search of an answer.
“A little stubborn,” Zetterberg said. “Instead of getting the puck down, we tried to make a cute play. Maybe it’s that we wanted it a little too much instead of getting the puck deep and get the puck back. Once we do that, we’re creating chances and we’re playing well.”
Again, Nyquist was in agreement with his captain.
“It’s up to each one to make sure that they’re doing their job and getting pucks deep,” Nyquist said. “We’ve said it a million times, we can’t be cute on our blue lines, especially (against) a transition team like this.
“They’ve got some high-end players that can hurt you. We’ve got to be better.”
Double Bonus
If there was a silver lining to another setback for the Wings, it came on their first goal. Nyquist scored on the power play, Detroit’s first goal on the road with the man advantage since Oct. 19 and Nyquist’s first tally since Nov. 23, a span of 22 games.
“Of course it was a relief personally but we lost the game, so it doesn’t really matter,” Nyquist said. “We’ve got to do it again next game, come out and be better next game.”
Road Sickness
Detroit wrapped up a seven-game road trip Thursday and prior to embarking upon this sojourn, the Wings were a respectable 8-6-1 away from home.
A 2-3-2 showing on the trip did nothing to help the Wings get closer to a playoff spot. They are eight points out of third spot in the Atlantic Division and 10 points out of the final Eastern Conference wild card position.
“Not very good,” Nyquist assessed. “Coming into this trip I thought we had a pretty good road record. We’ve been pretty good on the road.
“The west coast we started off bad and then had a real good game against L.A. and then a tough game against San Jose.
“We didn’t collect enough points. Now we’ve got three at home. We’ve really got to be sharp here at home and win those games for sure.”
There’s just one flaw in that plan - Detroit is 7-10-3 at Joe Louis Arena this season.
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