Late-night Bultman and Allen: Not Mo’s best night

The Detroit Red Wings lost to the Columbus Blue Jackets 5-3 on Monday night thanks to a set of goals scored by Yegor Chinakhov and Zach Werenski scored over the course of 2 minutes and 59 seconds of playing time, and the mistakes which led to those goals against are the focus of The Athletic’s Max Bultman’s post-game write-up.

In both cases, defensemen made big errors on their “reads,” and one of those defensemen happened to be Moritz Seider:

The play that tied the score at 3-3 actually started out well for Detroit, with the fourth line of Joe Veleno, Sam Gagner and Carter Rowney applying pressure in Columbus’ zone. Veleno even got a shot off from the bottom of the left circle, and when Columbus tried to break out off the ensuing rebound, Rowney made a great play at the offensive blue line to break it up and deny the exit.

From there, though, things took a turn. Rowney’s chip-in off the turnover quickly ended up back in the Blue Jackets’ possession, and they started pushing up the ice. Jakub Voracek looked set for a one-on-two situation against Filip Hronek and Nick Leddy through the neutral zone — which Detroit would surely take every time — but when the pass from his teammate hit him in the feet, it caused a bit of a scramble, and Hronek and Leddy tried to close on the puck. That left them both flat-footed as Voracek simply tapped the puck to Yegor Chinakov for a clean breakaway and Chinakov’s first NHL goal.

Without knowing Detroit’s responsibilities on a play like that, it’s impossible to know who made the mistake. Most likely, one of the defenders simply needed to stay off the puck when the other went for it. Either way, it was a mistake by the Red Wings, and the result was a huge momentum swing for Columbus late in the game. The goal added a whopping 44.1 percent to the Blue Jackets’ win probability with 4:18 left, according to Evolving Hockey, and their next shifts kept the pressure on.

To the Red Wings credit, though, they didn’t fold. With about a minute and a half left, Pius Suter found Moritz Seider creeping down from the blue line for a shot from the right circle. That’s part of what Seider can bring to the Red Wings and one of the reasons he’s been so impressive early in his first NHL season.

An instant later, though, he showed the other side of being a rookie, finding the rebound of his own shot and forcing a pass to the middle of the ice. Columbus picked that puck off, and soon after, it was in the back of the Red Wings’ net.

Bultman continues (paywall), and here are the goals in question:

We have to call a spade a spade, and Seider, who finished at -2 with 1 shot, 4 attempts, a hit, giveaway, takeaway and blocked shot in 22:15 played, did not have his best game, as Detroit Hockey Now’s Kevin Allen noted:

Lost in the ugly setback was another two-point night by rookie Lucas Raymond. He now has 17 points in 16 games to lead all NHL rookies.

Fellow Detroit rookie Moritz Seider had a tough night. He was -2, with some glaring giveaways and a couple of poor decisions. But Raymond has maintained some consistency in his performances. In fact, he seems to improving daily as an all-around player.

Bluntly, Seider has a harder job in learning how to play defense in the NHL, and his margin for error is zero, but just as Raymond has to stop making those blind passes to no one at the offensive zone blueline…Seider has to stop making those blind passes to no one when holding the offensive zone blueline.

Moritz will learn, as Raymond is learning. As I like to say, because it’s the honest truth, sometimes the best and most pertinent “learning” in the NHL comes when the puck ends up in the back of your net.

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George Malik

My name is George Malik, and I'm the Malik Report's editor/blogger/poster. I have been blogging about the Red Wings since 2006, when MLive hired me to work their SlapShots blog, and I joined Kukla's Korner in 2011 as The Malik Report. I'm starting The Malik Report as a stand-alone site, hoping that having my readers fund the website is indeed the way to go to build a better community and create better content.

One thought on “Late-night Bultman and Allen: Not Mo’s best night”

  1. Oh no, Mo made a mistake…. What should we do now?? I rarely disagree with Mr Malik but this one I have to. Please list all the mistakes that the Wings made from the Goalie on out. Not just all the players on the ICE for a Goal Against but mistakes that negated a scoring chance for the Wings, surely the Blue Jacket goals have to be partially owned by the Wings Goalie.

    Every Goal against has every player making a mistake during their shift and the Goalie gets a GA. Why not just give Mo a minus and the rest get off scott free? Raymond had two points, good for him. How many times did he blow a 3rd or4th point.

    Nit picking is pure DUMB especially for a pretty exciting rebuild so far.

    You and the rest of the talking heads maybe should be on the ice for a few games and let the players blog, yikes!! Certainly give your opinion, which is why the Blog is here. But maybe grab the mic from the hands of the announcer and stop the game to announce the mistakes.

    We all make mistakes and usually there is someone in authority who will make the determination wheter the next one will be with another team or a player’s agent will bring it up during contract negotiations.

    I think the Wings lost as as a team with many factors combining in the loss.

    Being a Goalies Dad I used to get very irate with people blaming all the goals against “as being the Goalies Fault”.

    Hockey actually can be a very tough game to pin point were the error started or maybe it was a hockey play that happens all the time but sometimes results in a GOAL.

    This kid as a Rookie with the Wings seems to have a large percentage of involvement in very good plays over his NHL career of less than 20 Games.

    There that is my opinion, right or wrong, it is my opinion.

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