Evidently, Henrik Zetterberg has seen enough. While not pointing to specific players, captain Zetterberg called out severl of his Detroit Red Wings teammates for their lack of attention to detail in recent games.
The Wings, who fell 4-0 to the Vegas Golden Knights Thursday at Little Caesars Arena, dropped to 0-4-1 in their last five games as they head to Columbus for a Friday meeting with the Blue Jackets, and Zetterberg is seeing some troubling signs from his team.
“There is too much poke and hope on a lot of players,” Zetterberg told Mlive.com, calling out those who are cheating their defensive responsibilities in a desperate search to create offense. “If you want to be a solid, good player in this league, if you want to win something, you have to learn to play the right way.
“Poke and hope might get you 25-30 goals, but you’ll never win anything. You have to play defense first. If you do that, we have guys in here who have enough skill to create chances and get enough chances. You can’t force and gamble all the time. You have to do it right and eventually you will get your chances.
“It’s not often you get chances when you cheat. Sometimes you will get rewarded, but not in the long run.”
Wings coach Jeff Blashill referred to it as “50-50 hockey.”
“It’s a way to lose tons of games,” Blashill said. “To me it’s a young mistake and we had enough young guys doing it for sure. You basically poke and hope that you get it and if you don’t get it, they’re going to get a chance. That’s not the way to win. No chance to win. You want to create chances without giving up chances.
“When you play poke and hope hockey, you’re done. You’ve got to win battles, you’ve got to slow yourself down, you’ve got to get your nose over the puck, you’ve got to make sure you play from the defensive side of the puck. You’ve got to win the puck battle and then you can play offense. Offense doesn’t come free in this league.”
Failed Firsts
Thursday’s loss marked just the second time in franchise history that the Wings were shutout by a first-year expansion franchise. The other occurrence also happened in Detroit, when Dan Bouchard blocked 46 shots to lead the Atlanta Flames to a 2-0 decision over the Wings at Olympia Stadium on Dec. 13, 1972. It was Bouchard’s first NHL shutout.
There were many similarities between the two games. In the Atlanta victory, Curt Bennett scored both goals as the Wings dropped the fifth game of their last six. Thursday, Alex Tuch and Cody Eakin each scored twice for the Golden Knights as Detroit lost for the fifth time in six games.
As well, the four-goal margin of victory also equaled the widest allowed by the Wings against a first-year club. The others:
Mar. 17, 1968 Detroit 1 at Minnesota North Stars 5
Mar. 11, 1970 Detroit 3 at Vancouver Canucks 7
Nov. 4, 1979 Detroit 1 at Quebec Nordiques 5
Mar. 16, 1980 Winnipeg Jets 6 at Detroit 2
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