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Facing a team that had played the day before, and a goalie who looked to be fighting the puck, the Detroit Red Wings didn’t put up much of a fight.
The Wings fell 4-2 to the Dallas Stars on Tuesday, firing a season-low 15 shots on goal against Stars netminder Ben Bishop.
While Bishop looked like he was auditioning for the Don Knotts role in a remake of The Shakiest Gun In The West, the Wings opted to perform as if they were Deputy Barney Fife, like they had no bullets in their guns.
“I thought we didn’t have a lot of shots on net but it felt like we tried to shoot and there were a lot of missed shots and they blocked a lot of shots, too,” Detroit captain Henrik Zetterberg told Detroitredwings.com. “They clog up pretty good in front of Bishop. You want to get more out of the chances that we had.”
The Wings frequently talk a good game about putting pucks on goal and getting to the net for second-chance scoring opportunities, but it’s clearly a facet of the game in which they suffer from some form of hockey dementia, because they consistently forget how to do it.
“That was our goal from the start, to shoot from everywhere and get to the net,” insisted forward Tyler Bertuzzi. And yet, the Wings took to the ice and did exactly the opposite.
“When we look back, we probably want to create a little more, get more pucks to the net and be there for the rebounds,” Zetterberg admitted.
You could say that the Wings were the victims of Dallas power-play goals from a couple of questionable calls, and you’d have a valid point. Luke Witkowski was penalized for a first-period elbow when replay showed he clearly didn’t touch Stars forward Martin Hanzal. And Witkowski was later assessed a puzzling roughing minor to go with his fighting major from a bout with Dallas defenseman Stephen Johns.
“To me the roughing call is a made-up call,” Zetterberg said. “Either it’s instigator or it’s nothing. I don’t know where he got the extra two from. To me, I think they both dropped the gloves at the same time. We’ve been in that situation before this year and it’s just been two fives. So that’s a tough one.”
Witkowski echoed his captain’s puzzlement.
“I don’t know how he can call it roughing,” Witkowski said. “You tell me.”
His opinion was backed up by Johns, Witkowski’s fistic dance partner.
“He even said in the penalty box that that was a terrible call,” Witkowski said.
Zetterberg, though summed it up as another obstacle that they needed to overcome.
“Obviously the first one, I don’t think he even hits him,” Zetterberg said. “But that happens. As a player we have a bad game sometimes and so does the refs.”
If you’re going to blame this one on the officials, share some of that blame with a Detroit power play now embroiled in a two-for-32 slump.
“I thought we lacked some execution,” Wings coach Jeff Blashill told Mlive.com. “We had moments of chance to execute on rushes that we just lacked on. Against them, we’re going to have to win it with our speed and our transition game. We’re probably not going to win it in an O-zone game and we’re not going to win it in a grind game, because they’re bigger and stronger and I thought we’re faster than them.
“So we wanted to use our speed to our advantage. We didn’t do a good enough job of that. But that was mainly from an execution standpoint, not from a lack of trying. We didn’t execute the way we wanted to.”
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