For the most part, coach Jeff Blashill liked what he saw from his Detroit Red Wings on Friday but that might be a hard sell to the frenzied faithful of Hockeytown.
“I talk tons about process and I thought from a process standpoint we did tons of things really good,” Blashill said. “It was unfortunate the way the final result was, but if we play like that over a long period of time, we’re going to get lots of results over and over again.
“We’ve just got to continue to repeat that type of performance. Again, not satisfied with the result but from a process standpoint, against a team that’s had a great start, and I thought we did lots of things well.”
Weird Science
The Red Wings were victimized by some strange goals during the game. Cam Atkinson opened the scoring with a shorthanded goal, the third shorty Detroit has surrendered this season.
“The first one was on our power play,” Detroit captain Henrik Zetterberg said. “I think it was a deflected shot, went into the boards and then a two-on-one for them. That’s a play that we do every time, so sometimes that happens.
“The second one was a fluky one too, and also the third one. But other than that, I thought we spent a lot of time in their zone. It’s not easy to get pucks through to their net but I thought we did a decent job.”
Petr Puck Problems
The second goal developed from a strange play. Detroit goalie Petr Mrazek had the puck covered under his glove far from the net and nearby in the corner, Blue Jackets forward Boone Jenner scuffled with Detroit defensemen Danny DeKeyser and Mike Green.
Everyone seemed to let up, assuming the play would be blown dead, and then all of a sudden Mrazek put the puck back into play and within seconds, it was in Detroit’s net.
“What I heard, (the referee) wanted Petr to play the puck,” Zetterberg said. “I don’t know if that meant he was going to get a penalty if he didn’t play the puck but he did and it ended up in our net.”
The third goal came after a shot bounced free out of Mrazek’s glove hand and shortly thereafter, Lukas Sedlak buried a rebound for his first NHL goal.
Immediately after that goal, Mrazek was replaced between the pipes by Jimmy Howard.
“I think both those rebounds, the second and third goals out of his glove, are ones he’s going to want to hold onto for sure,” Blashill said of Mrazek. “It just creates chaos and both of them ended up in our net, so it’s unfortunate that way.
“He’s got to do a better job holding onto those pucks in those two incidents and it ended up costing us.”
Back In Action
Howard (groin) was among three Wings who returned to action from the injured list. Defenseman Alexey Marchenko (shoulder) and forward Andreas Athanasiou (knee) also were back in the lineup.
“I felt fine,” Howard said. “I felt excited to be out there again. I was just trying to knock off some rust and I felt good out there.”
Athanasiou also reported no ill-effects from his first time in battle for 12 games.
“I felt good,” Athanasiou said. “I prepared well for the game. The legs felt good going out there.
“I tried to go out there and create some plays.”
Just when things were looking up for the Wings in terms of overall team health, defenseman Jonathan Ericsson missed the game due to back spasms.
Ericsson’s status is listed as day-to-day.
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