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The PK is Killing Them

January 22, 2018, 5:11 PM ET [20 Comments]
Bob Duff
Detroit Red Wings Blogger • RSSArchiveCONTACT
The Detroit Red Wings need to find a fix to their penalty killing woes and fast, because quite frankly, it’s killing them.

In their past 13 games, the Wings are 19-for-30 on the PK, a dismal 63.3 percent kill rate. They’ve surrendered six power-play goals in the past four games and are 1-3 in those games.

As the Wings readied for Monday’s game at New Jersey against the Devils, it’s easy to point to injuries as the root cause of this regression. Regular penalty killers Luke Glendening (wrist), Justin Adbelkader (lower body injury), and Darren Helm (lower body injury) are out and now you can add defenseman Trevor Daley (lower body injury) to that list.

The situation is so grim that rookie Dominic Turgeon, just recalled from AHL Grand Rapids for the first time, is taking turns on the PK.

“I don’t know if you can say besides personnel, because personnel has a great amount to do with it,” Detroit coach Jeff Blashill told Mlive.com. “That doesn’t mean that the guys out there aren’t going to be real good killers, but they need reps.
“We’d like them to get reps and not get scored on. But that’s part of it. They need reps and they need to continue to work through it.”

The Wings allowed two power-play goals in Saturday’s 3-1 loss to the Carolina Hurricanes.

“We had a couple mistakes made by guys that haven’t had lots of reps,” Blashill said. “That’s not why the puck necessarily went in, but that’s part of it. We’ve got to make sure … we came on the ice on one of the PK forechecks and we didn’t execute the forecheck. Some of that I just put on reps.

“So we’ve got to keep grinding. We’ve got to find a way to be better at it.”

Center Dylan Larkin agreed that inexperience is playing a large role in the number of pucks the Wings are pulling out of the back of their net while shorthanded.

“I thought the two goals they scored (Saturday) were pucks we should have had and we didn’t, and their players are too good and it’s going to be in your net every time,” said Larkin, who shouldered his share of the blame. “I didn’t seal the puck on the boards and made a mistake and it was in our net.

“I feel like we’ve got new guys, we’re trying different things, there’s a little bit of confusion. But it’s hockey, we’ve got to play, we’ve got to get back.”

Booth Waived
The Wings placed forward David Booth on waivers again on Monday. It’s his third time on waivers this season.

He’s gone unclaimed twice and seems likely to pass through waivers successfully a third time. But by clearing him through waivers, it gives the Wings the option to send Booth to AHL Grand Rapids as Detroit’s walking wounded regain health.

Booth, 33, has 3-1-4 totals in 17 games this season and is minus-two.

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