The Free Press’s Helene St. James and MLive’s Ansar Khan posted morning columns chronicling aspects of the Red Wings’ 3-2 overtime loss to the Florida Panthers last night.
St. James notes that the Red Wings are displaying level of resolve that the team hasn’t possessed in some time…
The Detroit Red Wings head off on a four-game road trip with a determination they haven’t had in several seasons.
They ride a three-game point streak into Saturday’s game in Toronto, buoyed by another example that sticking to their plan pays off. They had to settle for one point in Friday’s 3-2 overtime loss to the Florida Panthers at Little Caesars Arena, but considering the Wings trailed by a pair of goals after two periods, seeing Pius Suter tie the game with less than three minutes to go was a shot of confidence.
“We stuck with it, kept finding a way,” said goalie Alex Nedeljkovic after making 29 saves. “Suits got a great trip. It sucks like hell to lose like that. You give up a breakaway goal, it’s tough to swallow. But guys played awesome.”
The Wings rallied from a two-goal deficit to win in overtime Wednesday at Washington.
“We’ve got a great group of guys,” Nedeljkovic said. “We’re playing some great hockey. We have a good group in there and we believe in ourselves. We’re not just going to roll over.”
And MLive’s Ansar Khan focuses on the big shift by Adam Erne, Robby Fabbri and Danny DeKeyser, who blocked a fusillade of shots aimed at Nedeljkovic in the 3rd period:
“Guys were sacrificing their bodies,” Nedeljkovic said. “There were three big blocks. Whoever it was in the slot went down, blocked one, you could tell he was hurting and gets right back up and eats another one in the shin like five seconds later. It was awesome to see. The crowd feeds off it and we feed off the crowd. That drove us. We had a little momentum, a shift in their end and getting that tying goal, definitely the crowd helped.”
The Red Wings (4-2-2) have come back from two-goal deficits in each of their past two games against teams (Washington and Florida) that are a combined 13-0-3.
“We believe in ourselves, we know we can go out and win any night and tonight kind of shows it a little bit,” Nedeljkovic said. “We’re not going to just roll over. It doesn’t matter what the score is. We’re going to play hard; we’re going to play a full 60 as best we can, give ourselves as good a chance as any.”
Said Blashill: “As I said lots, I didn’t know what to envision with this team. You never know how pieces are going to fit together. But I knew what needed to be important for us to win. That was we have a level of commitment and sacrifice beyond normal.”
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