Jimmy Howard was ready and willing to shoulder the blame for the Detroit Red Wings’ latest setback.
Howard coughed up a pair of suspect goals – the first off a wrap-around attempt on which Melker Karlsson zipped home the rebound and the second when he wasn’t strong enough on his post and Matt Nieto was able to stuff the puck under him – and the Wings fell 3-2 to the San Jose Sharks Friday at Joe Louis Arena.
“That first one can't go in,… Howard said. “When the guys aren't scoring, that first one can't go in.
“Tonight's on me for them having to battle out of the hole.…
As much as they might appreciate their goaltender’s willingness to throw himself on his sword, the men charged with the task of illuminating red lights at the other team’s end of the ice also need to take a good, hard look in the mirror.
Friday marked the 10th time in 12 games Detroit has scored two goals or fewer.
Detroit scored 14 goals in its first four games, an average of 3.5 goals per game. The Wings were 3-1 in that span.
Since, the Wings have scored 22 goals in 12 games, an average of 1.83 goals per game. The Wings are 5-6-1 in those 12 games.
The Wings outshot the Sharks 28-14 and had another 16 shot attempts blocked by San Jose players. That might make the analytics gurus smile, but it didn’t pass the smell test among the Detroit brass.
“I just talked to some of our people that were upstairs,… Detroit coach Jeff Blashill said. “The one concern was we didn’t win enough one-on-one battles in the offensive zone.
“We’ve got to be a team that pays an extraordinarily hard price to score because we’re not the biggest team. That’s fine. We’ve got really good players that I’ll take on our team any day but we’ve got to be ultra competitive and I didn’t think the second half of the game we were ultra competitive enough.
“From a possession standpoint, we got a lot more time in their end than they had in our end. They had little time in our end but we’ve got to pay a bigger price to score goals.…
The players offered a variety of opinions on what’s wrong and what can be done to fix what ails the team’s attack.
“We were shooting the puck,… said Tomas Tatar, who scored Detroit’s first goal. “It just didn’t go in.
“We have to do a better job at net front. It was a tough game. We play up and down and they score goals.…
The Wings have talked a lot about accumulating some greasy goals.
“Maybe just funnel a little bit more pucks to the net,… defenseman Mike Green suggested.
Much like the one Teemu Pulkkinen tallied with 18:08 gone in the third period. Pulkkinen’s one-timer from the edge of the left faceoff circle wormed its way through traffic and banked into the net past San Jose goalie Martin Jones off the leg of Sharks defenseman Justin Braun.
“Sometimes you get a lucky bounce right to somebody’s stick, or else it goes off a pad and in,… Green said. “I think we need a couple of those.…
Green felt that the club is making progress in offensive areas and it wouldn’t be long until results began to show for their efforts.
“I think that when we skate we’re a very efficient team,… Green said. “I thought tonight maybe we started a little slow but in the third period as we picked up our pace we started to play a little bit better.
“So we need to continue to do that tomorrow night (at Boston) and we’ll be fine.…
Welcome Back Playing his first game of the season after recovering from ankle surgery performed in the summer, Detroit center Pavel Datsyuk displayed glimpses of his brilliant self, swiping the puck from a Sharks player on his first shift, firing four shots on goal and banking another off the goal post, but rink rust was also evident, as he was credited with three giveaways.
“I have good chances but I need to score with at least one,… Datsyuk said. “It would be good for me and for team. I not score. It's not the shots that matter, how many shots.…
Physically, Datsyuk admitted he wasn’t quite up to the game pace yet.
“Always when you come back the first game it's like everybody flying past you, you're just kind of passed a little bit,… Datsyuk said. “But it's common. Every shift is better and better. But I got tired a little bit in the end.…
The Wings expect they will see an improved version of Datsyuk every night for the first couple of weeks as he gets his legs back under him.
“It’s what I expected,… Blashill said. “He did some good things. He didn’t have a training camp. We’re 15 games deep already.
“I think the expectations that he’s just going to hop on like he does at the end of the year … well, it takes anybody, even as good as he is, time to get going.
“I thought he played fine, I thought there were moments of greatness but I also think he’ll be a lot better five games into this than he is today.…
Datsyuk offered his assessment of what the Wings must begin to do in order to light some red lamps behind opposition nets.
“I think we need more shoot and follow rebound,… Datsyuk said. “I think we just sometimes keep the puck and we need to shoot any shot and keep it dangerous.…
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