Perhaps it was a telling mark of the Detroit Red Wings’ season so far that the team came out of Wednesday’s 2-0 loss to the Anaheim Ducks counting as many injuries as the Ducks counted goals.
Defenseman Niklas Kronwall (lower body) and Brendan Smith (lower body) both did not play in the third period due to injury as the Wings went down to defeat for the 20th time in their last 30 games and were shutout for the fifth time this season.
“It’s not going our way right now,… defenseman Jonathan Ericsson said.
The silver lining for the Wings is that if Kronwall and Smith are both unavailable for Thursday’s game at Los Angeles against the Kings, healthy scratch Ryan Sproul and Alexey Marchenko, ready to return from a shoulder ailment, should be able to step into the void.
“We think Marchy and Ryan Sproul will be ready,… Detroit coach Jeff Blashill said.
Power (Play) Outage Yet again, the impotent Detroit power play was a main topic of conversation. An 0-for-three performance dropped the Red Wings to two-for-56 (3.5 percent) with the man advantage on the road this season.
The leaves were still on the trees when Thomas Vanek tallied Detroit’s last power-play goal away from home on Oct. 19 at the New York Rangers in the Wings’ fourth game of the season.
“I thought we had a a few looks but we have to be better,… Detroit captain Henrik Zetterberg said. “We keep doing the same things. It’s not working.
“We keep trying. We keep working on it, running the same plays but it’s not . . . there’s too many easy mistakes, too. When we have the puck in control, all of a sudden they have it.
“Instead of having a little poise and making plays, we’re a little hesitant and squeezing our sticks a little bit.…
Ericsson sounded a familiar refrain when it came to Detroit’s inability to put the puck in the net.
“I don’t know how many shots we had on goal but it was not enough,… Ericsson said. “From the outside too much I think. We started well I think. We got the puck behind their D, we forechecked pretty well.
“We’ve just got to find a way to get the puck to the net and have some people at the net to make it hard on them and get some second chances. It’s hard to score from the outside when we don’t have anyone in front.…
Now, where have we heard that before? Oh that’s right . . . after almost every Red Wings game this season.
Blashill also sounded an alarming tone, considering how desperate things should be getting for this team.
“I thought early in the game we were really skating,… Blashill said. “I thought our D got away from getting the puck to our forwards at the right times, so that slowed us down a little bit. But as the game went along, I thought there was not enough guys, I guess too many guys that were passengers, not enough guys driving the train.
“I thought we didn’t have enough guys going. I’d say half our forwards were going and half of them weren’t, so that’s not good enough.…
They Score . . . No They Don’t A second period Red Wings tally that would have made it 1-1 was disallowed when Smith was called for goaltender interference on Anaheim’s John Gibson.
“I understand the ruling, certainly from the ref’s perspective,… Blashill said. “I think it’s unfortunate, just one of those things in today’s NHL. I don’t think that was the purpose of the rule, to take lots of goals off the board. That’s more of a bigger picture look than the actual goal itself.
“I understand why he took it off. Ultimately, there was some contact there. I just don’t think that was why the rule was originally put in place. Unfortunately, it’s hard to score in this league and it took lots of goals off the board.…
Petr Power If there was a positive on the night, it was the play of goalie Petr Mrazek, who looked to be back to his old self after allowing at least three goals in each of his previous six starts.
“I thought he was a real bright spot,… Blashill said. “I thought he looked on top of his game, similar to what he has when he’s really, really good.…
Mrazek felt the work he’s been putting in with goalie coach Jeff Salajko was paying dividends.
“I feel pretty good,… Mrazek said. “The things we worked on when I’m in net, I used it a lot today.…
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